Metronome
by Fearful Little Thing
Summary: But the Judge persisted in his mind, a venomous mix of memory and hate. The hate surged of a sudden. For a moment the barber wondered if it would be easier, perhaps of more value to the world, to slit his own throat. Almost Lovett/Todd
1. Chapter 1

**Notes**: I haven't written for this fandom before, but I was driven to by one too many mistakes or anachronisms in other people's stories. You know what they say - write for yourself first. Any words that I use that are slang common to that era, or that I feel some people may not understand, I will place in a glossary at the bottom of the chapter. If I have omitted anything, please feel free to let me know. 

Mrs. Lovett is not meant to be as loveable as she appears in fanfiction.

**Disclaimer**: The characters and settings in this story do not belong to me. I make no profit from writing this story.

* * *

The clock ticked to the sound of his pacing. Back and forth, tick tick, perfectly in time with the sound of his footsteps from overhead. The swinging pendulum could have been one of his legs, always moving, back and forth, back and forth in front of that window. She almost didn't notice when she started moving to the beat, like she was dancing, her steps in time with his, her movements all in tune to the metronome of ticking clock and pacing feet.  
She scattered flour to the beat. She pounded and rolled pastry to the beat. She chopped, crimped, basted, and even wiped her forehead to the beat, leaving tiny smudges of flour and grease across her skin. She hummed to the beat, realised what she was doing, and cursed herself.

Always singing to his beat. Always dancing to his tune.

The only people, Mrs. Lovett mused, who danced to her tune were the ones she butchered in the basement kitchen. The only people who she never had to hide anything from were dead, their skulls cracked from the long drop from the second storey, throats slashed, faces always surprised... And always stinking. She had at first been disgusted to learn that human bodies always soiled themselves in the moments after death, when the muscles let go and the body was limp, before rigor mortis set in. Now it was just another bit of unpleasantness.  
She had begun to talk to them, these bodies that she cut up and baked into her pies. It started with a dry little joke when cleaving head from torso; "All this slaving away in a dark ol' room hot as a furnace, it's enough to make you lose your 'ead!"

Soon Mrs. Lovett was conversing with her meat from the moment she entered the room. She told young men her problems as she stripped them of their clothes and valuables. She chatted about the weather, the money she was making, and the price of flour gone up while she sharpened her cleavers against a whetstone. She confided in them her feelings of loneliness as she hacked their limbs from their bodies and stripped the flesh as best she could from the bones.

The Meat provided a sympathetic ear that she couldn't get from the boy Toby, or her Mr. Todd upstairs. Toby wouldn't understand. Though he was wordly for his age and had been forced to grow up fast, as all children from the poor and working classes did, there was a sort of innocence in him, and a moral compulsion that would send him running the second he discovered the truth about the pie shop. Mr. Todd just didn't care. And oh, how it hurt her to admit that. Even down here, in the dank humidity of the basement bakehouse, alone but for her dead, dismembered companions, it hurt.

Mrs. Lovett had to remember not to talk to the pies. The pies may be made of her dead companions, but they weren't the same. Pies didn't have faces, and were there to be eaten. She felt at her best these days when she was serving customers. These were faces that smiled back at her, and voices she didn't have to only pretend to hear.

She felt a sense of exhileration when she bustled through and around the tables, skirts swishing about her ankles, feet, back and arms aching. A dazzling smile would slowly creep onto her face as customers came and went, chatting, eating, and (of course) paying. And then, when the last customer left, her smile began to disappear.

By the time she had sent Toby to wipe down the tables and had begun to wash her trays and knives in a big tub of soapy water, Mrs Lovett looked older and more worn. The fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth deepened as she frowned into the greasy grey liquid. She scrubbed, splashing water onto her skirt and her rolled up sleeves, knowing the only thing stopping her hands from getting dry and cracked with the acidic traces of lye were the hard callouses and tough skin a baker developed over the years. Toby came, and went when she told him that she'd left him a tray in the sitting room. Boys and their appetites, Toby looked as if he could eat half his own weight on a good day. Mr. Todd didn't look as if he could eat anything at all, and had to be badgered into taking a few mouthfuls of stew and a gulp of two of ale. Always thinking of him, she was! And blast it all, he was pacing again and she was moving to the same beat!

Disgusted with herself, Mrs. Lovett threw the rough scrubbing brush she'd been using to scour her oven trays across the room. Shoving her sleeves higher on her arms, Mrs. Lovett fished in the dirty water for her trays, stacking them on the nearest available surface with as much noise as she could possibly make. Trying to drown out the noise of the pacing from above she did the same with her knives, slamming each one down on top of the trays with a clatter.  
She couldn't down him out, no matter what she did.

Frustrated, Mrs. Lovett grasped the edges of the tub, hauling the heavy container of greasy water to the door. She was puffing like a bellows by the time she'd even taken four steps, and had splashed dishwater onto the bottom of her skirts. Annoyance and self-hate giving her strength, she barelled open a window without even touching the handle, and threw the dishwater out onto the street with a yell that made a few passers-by stare.

Panting, Mrs. Lovett retreated back into the shop. She shoved the tub under the counter (which was really only a table with an extra panel nailed to the front) and collapsed against the wood with a groan, tears of frustration prickling at her eyes. His pacing had stopped. Sudden heavy footfalls could be heard coming down the steps outside and Mrs Lovett gave a little gasp. She straightened and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, smudging the charcoal that she used to make her eyelashes appear darker, turned away from the door in the hopes that he wouldn't notice that she'd been crying. Or maybe hoping that he would notice, notice something about her.

The door opened with a protesting whine from the hinges, and closed with another small whine. His footsteps were closer now, though strangely muted now that he wasn't above her. In time with the clock he strode (tick, tick, tick, tick) until he was standing at her back. Mr. Todd didn't speak, but she could feel those intense, odd eyes staring at her back.

Gathering her wits, Mrs. Lovett pasted a smile onto her face and turned. "Mr. Todd," she greeted him, "can I get you something to eat, dear? Something to drink? I got this new ale just this morning, it has this real nutty taste..." Mrs. Lovett trailed off uncertainly when all he did was continue to stare at her.

"You've been crying, luv."

"What?" Shocked just as much that he'd spoken as that he'd noticed, Mrs. Lovett floundered, unable to come up with anything more witty to say.

"You've been crying."

"No I haven't." A bare-faced lie was the best she could do and his eyes seared through the untruth, burning her and making her look away. "It's just these onions I were chopping earlier, that's all."

His eyes swept through the shop, seeing no traces of onion.

"Downstairs," Mrs. Lovett elaborated weakly, "I was chopping them downstairs. Mr. T."

Mr. Todd did not look convinced. He must have decided to let it go, because he didn't say anything further on the subject. "I'll take dinner upstairs," he told her instead, turning to walk out of the store and back up the stairs to his own shop, "I wont be disturbed."

* * *

He heard her. All day, every day. When he wasn't lost in his own thoughts he could hear the noises floating up to him from below, like God must hear Hell. He thought of Downstairs as hell, his own personal hell, and that was strangely comforting. Mrs. Lovett was his Devil, the voice of reason that he didn't want to listen to, whispering in his ear and forever telling him to wait, softly, to be patient. Sweeney Todd was not normally given to being patient in matters like these that tumbled through his mind day by day. Had it been solely up to him he would have simply found a way into the Judge Turpin's manor, slit the man's throat, and then let himself be taken for his murder. Sweet Justice, locked in Bedlam, executed, hung by the neck... Death did not scare Mr. Todd. He was already dead on the inside.

Mrs. Lovett's voice continually brought him up and out of these death fantasies, reminding him that there was such a thing as life. Her voice had told him of his daughter, living with the judge. Her voice had convinced him to wait, to see Anthony and his ridiculous interruption as an opportunity rather than a setback. Her voice resonated in his empty chest, filling him with a feeling as if his heart were still beating. Sometimes he imagined that he had died when his Lucy had. He imagined that he'd felt it, back in the prison camp, working to clear land for roads and settlements, that his heart had broken one day and he was only just realising when and why it had happened. Gradually, over time, every night he went to sleep he woke up emptier and emptier...

She didn't know it, but he could hear her when she was down in the bakehouse. Her voice filtered up through the shaft, coming up through the floorboards as a pleasant hum. He could not hear the words, but he knew she was talking; Chatting to a captive audience, perhaps to keep her own squeamish fears at bay.

"She keeps us alive, my pet," he spoke to the gleaming silver cut-throat in his hand, idly sharpening the already deadly-sharp blade against a leather strap, his voice was barely above a murmur. Even now he could recall her face as clear as daylight, right down to the tiniest detail, how her pupils dilated whenever he came too near.  
Sweeney Todd growled in disgust, flicking his razor closed and turning away from the chair to the slanting window that faced out towards the dregs of London. He could recall the woman he loved only when he gazed at her picture, but he could see his Devil whenever he closed his eyes.

Oh, how he hated her... He hated every little detail, from the top of her unruly reddish curls right down to the flaking buttons on her shoes. He hated how she would pester him to eat, to drink, to wash, to come outside and get a bit of air. He hated how she was always right, how she could come up with amazingly practical schemes to solve both of their problems at a go. He hated how she smiled. He hated how she doted upon that boy, a walking liability that she insisted was harmless. He hated her most of all because she could make him smile - rarely, fleetingly, he smiled. It reminded him that he was still human, and Sweeney Todd hated to be reminded of his own humanity.

Her footsteps sounded on the stairs and Mr. Todd slipped his razor back into its casing. He always knew it was her from the tiny click of her heels against the wood. Tap-click, toes then heels, tap-click, and the rustle of her bustled skirts. The tap-click stopped outside the door, her knuckles rapped against the varnished and stained wood.

"Mr. T," she called through the doorway, "I've got your dinner on a tray, luv, and it's just left outside your door. I know you said you was not to be disturbed."

There was a long pause as they both stood, separated by ten feet and a sturdy wooden door, and then Mrs. Lovett's feet began tap-clicking towards the stairs. Mr. Todd moved swiftly, crossing the length of his barber shop in only three single strides. He pulled the door open, his head and shoulders appearing from the gloom a split second before the rest of him. "Mrs. Lovett."

She stopped at the top of the stair and turned, her hand upon the rail. Her brown eyes looked absurdly hopeful. It occurred to him that he could no longer remember her first name.

"Yes, Mr. Todd?" Mrs. Lovett prompted when he simply stared at her, ignoring the tray at his feet. His stare bored into her head through her eyes, he looked as if he could see right through into her skull even though her mind remained as unreadable as always.

"No," he said after a long moment of just staring, "I need nothing. Leave me."

Mrs. Lovett nodded, her curls bobbing about her head, and turned again to leave.

"No!"

She stopped again only two steps below where she had started, turning to look up at him with confusion on her face and worry on her eyes. "Mr. T?"

"What is..." Mr. Todd seemed to choke on the words, eyes narrowing breifly, face becoming drawn. "Mrs. Lovett, what is your name?"

Now it was her turn to stare at him. She was trying to puzzle him out, he could tell, trying to see what might have made him ask, whether he had some kind of hidden motivation. Whatever she thought of his question, she could not find the answer to him. "Nell," Mrs. Lovett replied, uncharacteristicly hesitant. "I never known ought else."

For one very breif moment Mr. Todd's face softened, and for that one moment he looked more like Benjamin Barker in Sweeney Todd's clothes. Then he slammed the door, leaving the tray, and Mrs. Lovett's bowl of stew and pot of best ale alone on his doorstep.

He slumped against the closed door, cradling his head in his forearms, teeth bared, eyes screwed shut. He could hear her breathing. His Devil, waiting in vain for him to reappear. Then she descended, tap-click tap-click, down into Hell.

Only when he heard the door to the pie shop close did he slowly let his own door creak open enough for him to retrieve the bowl of stew and the pot of ale. Only the first bite tasted sweet. The rest tasted like nothing. He ate it as if it were a path to salvation, as if it were Lovett herself... _Because_ it was her.

* * *

**Cut-throat** - the style of razor that Sweeney Todd uses. A single blade on a hinge that folds the knife so that the sharp part of the blade is facing into the handle. Therse were (and sometimes still are) used up until the invention of the disposable razor.  
**Bellows** - large, organ-like instrument used in blacksmithing to raise the temperature of the forge fire. Often makes wheezing noises when used.  
'**Pot**' of ale - Actually a modern-day word as well. A pot is a glass used for beer/cider/ale, and is the size smaller than a schooner. It would be about a half-pint. 


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: This is posted as it was when I finished it. I might not have caught all of the possibly typos/mistakes, so if you find one please PM me to let me know what and where it is. (The phrase "them that were in charge" was written that way on purpose.)

I would also like to let you know that no matter how the last 'scene' reads, I did not intend it to be anywhere close to character-bashing.

* * *

Tobias Ragg was not an idiot. He may not have been the smartest boy, and ocassionally not the brightest spark around, but he was smart enough to have lived this long without dire mishap. He was smart enough to know that something was going on. The little clues just kept piling up the longer he stayed under Mrs. Lovett's roof.  
It had been like that in the work house. Little clues that led you to horrible truths. At first, once the orphanage had sold you to the mill, or the factory, you thought it wouldn't be so bad. Two meals a day, a bed of your own, and a bit of hard work that never killed anyone. When you were old enough, you would leave, and that would be that... Not so. First you saw the hollow-eyed stares of some of the boys, especially the comely ones; Then you started to hear the tiny whimpers in the middle of the night, when you couldn't quite sleep properly anymore because the thoughts had started tumbling around your head. You noticed the tiny leering smiles of them that were in charge.

Even those that were paid, the older ones who kept things in order, the wages were small. It was barely enough to live on. So why did they stay on? Why, when there were easier jobs, when there were higher paid positions elsewhere, did they continue to work in those places?

Eventually you came to realise... They did it because they liked it. They liked to watch those quick, small hands when they were broken by machines or stuck by needles. They liked to slip upstairs, to pick a boy whose face was pretty and whisper things to him, hands darting under grimy sheets.  
A part of Toby was deeply ashamed that he'd kept his eyes squeezed shut whenever he heard them pass, _knowing_ that he was too plain-looking, but desperately hoping they wouldn't stop at him just the same. He hated that he'd never done a thing about it. He hated that he'd seen new boys who came in capable of smiling and faded into silent, haunted shadows as the weeks passed on. He hated that he'd been so grateful to be taken into Pirelli's service that he hadn't even said goodboye...

The clues here were different.

The clues were in the way that Mrs. Lovett would smile at Mr. Todd, the way her breathing would quicken sometimes. It was in how she spoke to herself sometimes when she baked - he could sometimes hear the muffled sound of her voice when he walked past the door that led down to the basement kitchen - and how she flatly refused to let him go downstairs. Mrs. Lovett, Toby knew, was infatuated with Mr. Todd. And at first Toby had thought that was stupid, her sole fault, her small bit of naivety. Mr. Todd didn't care. How could he care? He looked as if he didn't possess emotion or care about anything but his razors and his barber shop upstairs.

But the longer Toby stayed, the more he began to notice the way that Mr. Todd would gain a certain look in his eye when he watched her. It was like respect, almost admiration, but it would change so often to resentment that Toby could never be sure if what he'd seen in the barber's face was real. The clues were all about Mr. Todd. The intense, intimidating, often monosyllabic Mr. Todd - a man who stalked about upstairs and came down only rarely, who seemed as if human contact was something foreign to him... As if he couldn't quite fathom that Toby was a child, or what a child really was. As if, somehow, Toby made the barber uncomfortable.

And the smell! Sometimes, when the wind blew right, Toby could smell the smoke that came from the oven fire downstairs. He knew what a bone mill smelled like, his work house had been right across from one. That smell was terribly similar to the smell of charring bone and flesh. Sickly, almost sweet in a way, with a taste on the air that left you both hungry and gagging at the same time. Reason would say that Mrs. Lovett just bought a whole side or half-side, carved the meat up herself, and threw the bones into the fire rather than cart them upstairs to send them off to the mill or chuck them into the sewers. Reason would say that, but Toby also reasoned that he'd never seen Mrs. Lovett buying meat. He'd never seen meat being delivered either.

He only saw two customers in three actually leave Mr. Todd's barber shop upstairs.

Toby was starting to get awfully worried.

* * *

"Try this."

That voice was Mrs. Lovett's, and Toby peeked around the banister just enough to see her standing by the small wood stove, holding a wooden spoon in one hand, her other cupped beneath it to catch any drops that might fall from it. She turned slowly, careful not to let whatever was in the spoon drip onto the floor, and offered the spoon to Mr. Todd.  
Mr. Todd was standing there by the table, staring off into space as he idly fingered the stained cuffs of his white shirt. They were stained to a brownish colour, Toby saw, you'd never notice the change if you didn't see him with his jacket off.

He responded to Mrs. Lovett waving the spoon under his nose only slowly, and with a grunt that might have been a question.

"Oh, dont worry dear," Mrs. Lovett replied, acting as if he'd really spoken instead of just made a vague noise, "it's just a little experiment of mine for a new sauce. There aint any meat in it."

That didn't strike Toby as particularly odd. Mr. Todd never ate red meat. Whenever it was put before him he gained a certain look on his face, one where his lip curled a little in disgust and you could see his nostrils flaring. The few times that had happened Mrs. Lovett had made a joke about it. _Not to his taste_, she said, _he was waiting for something grander_.  
Mr. Todd regarded the spoon beneath his nose with a similar look, lip curling a little at the corner. He looked as if he was going to protest, even just to turn away and refuse her in silence. Then, just when Toby thought that he would surely push the spoon away, Mr. Todd seemed to give in.

The barber leaned forward just enough to take a tiny bit of the sauce from the very tip of Mrs. Lovett's wooden spoon. He turned away then, Toby couldn't see his face when he spoke, the barber's voice unusually gruff even for him; "It's very good."

"You see!" Mrs. Lovett was just as cheerful as ever, but somehow her optimistic facade seemed just a little bit off, "I told you them new spices would make a real difference."

Mr. Todd stiffened, going suddenly rigid. "Get out."

Mrs. Lovett reeled back as if burned. He couldn't see it, but surely he could hear the click of her shoes against the wooden flooring. "But... Mr. T!" Mrs. Lovett gasped, dropping her spoon on the table top regardless of the sauce (rust red, Toby noted, the sauce was like thick, old blood). "Get out of me own kitchen?"

"Get out," Mr. Todd repeated, his hand performing some kind of twitch that brought it close to that stange holster on his belt that he kept his razors in. His voice was so cold it would have frozen a lake in summer.

Mrs. Lovett didn't so much as pause to take her big pot of sauce off the stove. She fled into the parlour so fast that she didn't even notice Toby sitting on the stair nearby. Mr. Todd didn't notice the presence of their small guest either; Not when he stood there, staring out the window as the pot bubbled, not when he started pacing back and forth in front of the table, muttering to himself. Toby knew it was stupid and as like to get him kicked out on his ear as it was to get any information, but he leaned forward just the same, trying to catch what Mr. Todd was saying to himself.  
"Just like hers," he was saying, repeating the words over and over, interspersed with the word 'why' and frustrated sounds ripped from the back of his throat.

It took Toby a while to realise that he was talking about the sauce. Just like _who's_? He was so caught up in wondering who Mr. Todd could be referring to that he almost missed it when the words changed. The words changed but Toby didn't have time to sort them out into a proper meaning, because Mr. Todd had taken hold of the big, bubbling pot - seemingly oblivious to how the metal must burn - and thrown it across the room. Sauce splattered everywhere, drenching the walls, the floor, the table, and Mr. Todd himself in that thick, glutinous, rust red sauce.

Toby bolted back up the stairs and to the rear of the building that he now called home. Only once he'd thrown himself into his small bedroom, which was more like a sewing room that had a ricketty old bed shoved into the middle, did he remember what Mr. Todd had said before he'd thrown the pot.

"She did it. It was her."

Just another clue to the puzzle. Toby would figure it out in the end even if it killed him to do so.

* * *

Lucy could not cook. She could make jam and preserves, but she was utterly hopeless when left alone with savoury goods and an oven. Her family was of good enough standing that nobody had mourned her ability to burn salads, it had always been expected that she would marry well and have a household staff to do all of her cooking for her. Of course, nothing in this life ever goes quite how you think it will.

Almost the exact day that the future Lucy Barker turned fifteen her father discovered that his business partner had signed on a bad deal. All of their assets, all of their money, was suddenly gone. The big manor house was sold, along with almost everything with it. Lucy's fifteenth birthday present was a small room in a small house in the city. Suddenly cooking was important again.

Lucy improved only enough that her meals were passable. They were edible, but never something anyone particularly looked forward to. Without a maid to clean the house or a nanny to look after the younger children, Lucy was given a crash course in childcare and basic cleaning. Her mother, a fair hand at sewing, found work as a seamstress, her father took several steps down in the world to work as a banker.

Lucy met the love of her life at sixteen. It was when Benjamin Barker was courting her that she met the baker who owned and leased the shop upstairs, and his young wife. Mrs. Lovett - Nellie, back then - was a bright eyed, dark haired little thing who ruled her kitchen with a wooden spoon and a smile. Sensing an opportunity and not wanting to disappoint her future husband, Lucy first asked Mrs. Lovett to teach her how to cook.

The venture was a marvellous failure that left smoke stains on the wall and ceiling in glorious swirling, sooty patterns.

"It's hopeless!" Lucy cried, throwing her small, pale hands up in frustration. "I curdle milk just by looking at it! I make lettuce wilt! If I so much as touch the sauce it goes lumpy!"

The young Mrs. Lovett clucked her tongue. She had been deathly jealous of Lucy when she first discovered what the young woman was to Mr. Barker upstairs... Now she was still jealous, but she couldn't hate a woman who was both sugar-sweet _and_ terrible at almost every household chore that mattered. The woman cleaned well and knew her way around a nursery, but laundry, cooking, and other housekeeping chores were beyond her, poor thing.  
"It's not so bad, dear," Nellie tried to comfort the younger girl by patting her shoulder gently, "so you're not made for the kitchen, your Mr. Barker loved you before he tasted your cooking and I'm sure he'll feel the same afterwards."

"I'm hopeless," Lucy reiterated with a sigh, though she gave Mrs. Lovett a little smile. Suddenly something seemed to occur to her. "Mrs. Lovett," Lucy began breathlessly, her sudden excitement more than obvious as she clutched at Nellie's hand with her own, "I can cook well enough that Benjamin wont starve, but I can't do anything fancy. _You_ are the best cook I've ever met! Surely you could come up with something, some sauces perhaps, that I can reheat and serve with my cooking! It's bound to taste so much better." Seeing Mrs. Lovett's reluctance, Lucy was quick to add on to her suggestion; "I could pay you of course, not much, perhaps a few shillings a week...?"

Mrs. Lovett thought of the beautiful Benjamin Barker who kept shop upstairs suffering through Lucy's terrible cooking. She imagined a perfect marriage, the only fly in the ointment the horrible, burnt or bland meals that Mr. Barker came home to every night. A man like that deserved the happiness in this life that he could get. She smiled, squeezing Lucy's hands in reassurance. "Of course I will, dear. How could I say no to a face like that?"

Lucy thought that Mrs. Lovett meant her face, with her sincerity and hope. Lucy was perhaps not the most perceptive young woman in the world.

* * *

No glossary this time 'round, but just in case anyone needs to google the words "bone mill", I mean the kind that converts animal bones into fertilizer or other products, not the medical kind.


	3. Chapter 3

Note: I bet you thought I was dead. But no, this story will be updated again, just rather slowly. I have ambitions for this story... grand ambitions. Thankyou to everyone who inspired me by reviewing, and a special thankyou to Aithilin, who found the answer to a certain quandry.

If anyone doesn't know what a word means or you need an explanation of some bit of language used, please dont hesitate to ask.

* * *

It was half past two. Mr. Todd had not been downstairs all day. He hadn't spoken to Mrs. Lovett since he'd ordered her out of her own kitchen and every time he heard the click of her heels downstairs his palms throbbed. Mr. Todd had soaked his hands in the coldest water he could find and bandaged them from wrist to fingertips. He had seen only two clients all day and had worn gloves so they couldn't see the blisters on his palms and baulk. Burn-blisters looked surprisingly similar to the sores that came with syphillis, and nobody wanted to touch a diseased man.

Mr. Todd sat in his barber's chair now, his bandaged hands lying limp in his lap. He stared across the room at the wall, looking at things that weren't there, ignoring the muffled noises that floated up through the long shaft behind him even though the trap door was closed. Mrs. Lovett was downstairs. From the sounds that drifted upwards from Hell he could tell that she was using her cleavers. He didn't want to hear her.

The heavy tramp of feet coming up the stairs slowly pulled Mr. Todd from his listless stupor. These weren't the measured steps of the well to do, nor were they the lumbering, lethargic plodding of the working man. Whoever came up those stairs was young, and in a good enough mood to be almost running up the stairs. Mr. Todd frowned.

His assumptions of youth and exuberance were proved right when the bell above his door jangled and a familiar, boyish face peered into the gloom of the barber shop.

"Mr. Todd!" Anthony's youth was again realised in his voice. Boyish and smooth, nowhere close to gaining the roughness that came from breathing the London smog or drinking rough liquor. Anthony stopped suddenly, changing what he'd been going to say when he saw the bandages on his friend's hands; "Mr. Todd, what happened to your hands?"

Sweeney Todd slowly raised one of his hands, looking at it for a moment as if he hadn't quite realised that this foreign article was really a part of himself. "A small accident," he said eventually. "Mrs. Lovett needed a little help," Mr. Todd elaborated, knowing that Anthony would only ask more questions if not cut off from the source of his curiosity straight away, "the cloth was not thick enough to prevent a little burning"  
A flash of memory made his eyes darken. The pot on the stove, innocently bubbling. A curse from his past. Devil woman!

The sudden change of expression startled Anthony, who had momentarily forgotten exactly why he'd come in the first place. It was beginning to occur to him that perhaps his friend Sweeney Todd was not the happiest or, perhaps, sanest person around. Then again, he supposed that the ordeal of shipwreck and floating nearly lifeless in the middle of the ocean for three days before rescue was enough to send anyone a little loopy. Add to that a couple of strange hints about Mr. Todd's origins (you didn't have to be a genius to figure out that Mr. Todd had served time in a prison colony) and Anthony felt that this more than excused his friend's odd behaviour.

Like always, the dark silence only continued for a few seconds before the barber broke it again. "You were going to tell me something exciting."

Anthony ignored, or perhaps didn't catch, the tiny hint of sarcasm in his friend's voice. He remembered why he had come, and a fanatical light burned in his eyes. "Mr. Todd," Anthony began, unconsciously clutching at the cuffs of his coat, "I may have found Johanna."

Uneasiness warred with Anthony's natural excitement upone Sweeney Todd's reaction. The barber's breath seemed to catch, his eyes growing wide and, for a fraction of a second, almost as fanatical as Anthony imagined his own might have been in that first second he had burst through the door. "Oh?" the man croaked eventually, all he could say.

"I _might_ have," Anthony repeated, stressing the word might over all the others. "You see, Mr. Todd, I have been talking to people and there is a rumour. A man who works in an asylum may know her whereabouts."

"An asylum," Mr. Todd repeated dully. His voice and manner were as dry as ever, yet somehow Anthony got the impression that he was scandalously interested in this tidbit of information.

"Yes," Anthony agreed, ready to overlook Mr. Todd's obscene interest. "Only... I can't speak to him."

"I beg your pardon."

It was a statement, Anthony noticed, not a question. If he'd believed Mr. Todd capable of looking baffled, he might have thought that was the perfect description of the look on the barber's face. "Well," Anthony released his sleeve cuffs, instead clasping his hands in front of him and looking determinedly down at the floorboards, "a lot of blue-collar men do not trust sailors on shore leave. There is too much bad blood between men of my profession and men who do an honest day's work on land."  
The way that Anthony spoke gave the impression that he was repeating something that may have been said to him at some point. Either way it got the same result. "I was hoping," Anthony barrelled on, daring to look up, "that you might find the time to speak to him for me. You're an honest man, Mr. Todd. An honest _working_ man. A londoner. A man like Mr. Church would certainly talk to you!"

It took a startlingly short time for Mr. Todd to agree to talk to this mysterious Mr. Church in Anthony's place. Frankly, the young sailor had been expecting more of a struggle.

* * *

Mrs. Lovett had been wary of Mr. Todd ever since his outburst. In nearly two days he had not come down to the shop front or the rest of the house once. Mrs. Lovett had taken him supper, breakfast, and lunch, leaving the trays outside his door and trying not to glance back as she descended the stairs. Every time she returned the trays would show signs of being moved, but the food had only been picked at. The barber showed no signs of wanting to speak to her, or even to see her, and she had only just begun to grasp why.

The sauce had been scrubbed from walls, windows and floor without complaint. Toby had passed through at one point and had looked as if he really wanted to say something.

"Ma'am?" he had asked, looking at the congealed rusty-red goo that still marred some of the windows.

"It's nothing Toby," Mrs. Lovett had replied, "just a little accident, that's all."

Toby had opened his mouth as if to speak, but simply sighed instead. His shouldered had slumped a little, and he offered to help her mop up. He was such a good boy, that one.

Mrs. Lovett was a bit wary of the temperamental barber, but she was also a little bit fluttery too. If Mr. Todd was upset with her for the reason that she thought, then it was because some of his old illusions about poor Lucy had crumbled into dust. Mr. Todd was upset with her for accidentally showing him that his wife, while a beautiful person in her own right, was not as good a cook as he had thought. Mr. Todd may very well be upset with her because he had _loved _Lucy's cooking. Perhaps, if she were very patient, he might come to realise that Mrs. Lovett was much better for him than memories. She could keep him warm at night in ways that memories and portraits could not.  
Mrs. Lovett sighed, staring balefully at a stack of pies that she would need to reheat in the small oven before selling. Deep down she knew it was a fantasy. "Maybe I should keep all me prowess for you," Mrs. Lovett said to the pies, "you'll appreciate my sauces, wont you luv?"

The bell above the shop door jingled just as she finished speaking, announcing the arrival of a customer. Mrs. Lovett looked up sharply, expecting to see a young girl or boy, a portly older man, a hard-handed seamstress perhaps, anyone other than who she saw. Mr. Todd stood just inside the doorway, staring at her as if she were crazy.

A rush of heat suddenly peppered Mrs. Lovett's cheeks. "Well you talk to them razors," she snapped tartly.

Mr. Todd blinked. His eyes lowered to the tray of pies, then travelled slowly back to her face. "Mrs. Lovett," he said slowly, "I am in need of direction."

Mrs. Lovett's breath caught in her throat, her heart pounded by she refused to let it show. "Direction, luv?"

"Anthony," Mr. Todd began, "has passed on some information to me." He paused, struggling with some internal wall, or battling against some instinct or other. "I..." Mr. Todd actually managed to look the slightest bit sheepish, "there is a man I must speak with. He resides at the Duke's Fancy, and I... do not know where that is."

Mr. Todd, back when he had been Mr. Barker, had been a respectable man. The area that surrounded the pie shop had been respectable back in those days, it was only in more recent times that the quality of both the people and the buildings had changed. In the years when Benjamin Barker had rented the room above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, he had never ventured into the seedier parts of London - he'd had no need to. Since returning to London, Mr. Todd had not had any need to venture further than the parts of London that he already knew.

Mrs. Lovett was shocked to realise just how sheltered Mr. Todd had been; And still was, in a way. "The Duke's Fancy," she repeated thoughtfully. She knew the name from somewhere. "Oh! Yes, I know that place. It's by the spicers I like to get my pepper from." Sensing an opportunity, Mrs. Lovett smiled. She took off the flour-stained apron that she'd been wearing over her dress, turning to hang the garment from a peg on the wall. "Why, speaking of pepper, Mr. Todd, I do need some. I can take you there right now if you've a mind to wait."

Mr. Todd didn't object. In fact, he didn't move. A look of distaste passed across his face while Mrs. Lovett wasn't looking but he said nothing to contradict her. He winced when Mrs. Lovett shreiked something in the direction of the parlour, realising only when the boy appeared that she had been calling for Toby.

"Yes ma'am?" The boy asked, eyeing Mr. Todd with a cool gaze that made the barber's lip curl slightly.

"Mind the shop," Mrs. Lovett instructed, patting her hair to make sure that most of her unruly curls were still where they ought to be, then patting the top of her bust to make sure her purse was still there, nestled firmly where no pick-pocket would dare to try and take it. "Mr. Todd and I is just going to the markets for a tick."

Toby nodded and voiced another cheerful 'yes ma'am', but his suspicious eyes followed the barber long after the pair had left.

* * *

The markets where Mrs. Lovett liked to get her spices from were only slightly more reputable than the establishments closer to her shop. They were by no means the kind of place that catered to the rich, or even the moderately wealthy, but their stock was well enough. Mr. Todd looked like a dog with its hackles raised, his curled lip and glaring eyes just a front to mask how truly lost he was in this new, baffling mazelike part of the city. He followed Mrs. Lovett's steps doggedly, not paying the slightest bit of attention whenever she chattered into his ear. Mr. Todd made the apropriate responses, but he didn't hear a word she said.

Mrs. Lovett didn't care. She was that relieved that he was on speaking terms with her again.

The baker led Mr. Todd to the spicer's shop. She was about to go inside when she noticed that he had pulled up short just by the window. "Mr. T?" Mrs. Lovett asked, "are you alright?"

Mr. Todd turned the full force of those glaring eyes upon his guide, a muscle in his jaw twitching to show his irritation. "The Duke's Fancy, Mrs. Lovett," the barber replied, each word dripping from his lips like acid.

"You'll get there, Mr. T," Mrs. Lovett told him, "I just need to pop in here first and -"

"You can point the way from here," Mr. Todd cut her off impatiently, repressing the urge to tap his foot against the cobbles.

Mrs. Lovett clucked her tongue, placing a hand on her hip. "Now see here, Mr. Todd. I know you, luv. You'll go in there lookin' all dour and that man what you want to talk to wont be a bit of help. What you need is a woman's touch to help gentle the approach." She shook her head sadly and gestured to the window and his reflection, "look at yourself, Mr. Todd. I dont know what you've a mind to talk to this man about, but I can guess. You wont get yourself any closer to your Johanna trying to talk to people when you look like that."

Mr. Todd turned slowly to stare for once at his own relfection, the image not fractured by a broken mirror. Dammit. She was right. He may be a respectable working man as Anthony had said (or he was as far as anyone knew) but he was not the kind of man that inspired friendliness in other men. "Very well," he growled, turning his face away from the reflection in front of him.

The reflection made him feel uncomfortable, like his assessment of Mrs. Lovett was wrong. It made him feel as if perhaps his barber shop were Hell, and _he_ was the Devil. That was not a thought he liked at all.


	4. Chapter 4

Notes: Yes! All it took was a really boring day at work, staring at pies, and I broke through my writer's block. The style of this story may start to change a little from here on in, as I've finally figured out where it's going. That may mean more action and less introspection.

A firkin is a small barrel used to house wine - often strong wine, like port.

'Rum' as an adjective is an alternative for 'strange'.

For the very first time, Sweeney Todd paid attention to the way people looked at him on the street. The middle-aged, cynical and jaded, noticed him only in passing - too wrapped up in their own dour lives to see him as anything more than an eccentric. The young men and women didn't care, concerned only with their own lives or with their young children. They only noticed him as an obstacle in the street, something to step around, to take care not to bump into. It was the children and the beggars that concerned him.  
Small children would look at him and as he looked back Mr. Todd could see it at once in their eyes, that somehow they recognised him as kin to the monster under the bed. Wide, frightened eyes filled with tears, tiny hands clutched at mother's skirts. The beggars avoided him completely. Ratty, bedraggled men and women who would approach anyone, hoping for enough pity or revulsion that they would be paid to go on their way, avoided him. Street urchins, those children who had already seen the 'monster under the bed' in many of its human incarnations, still recognised him as a monster.

Sweeney Todd, the monster. Sweeney Todd, the devil. These new thoughts made him very uncomfortable.

"We're close now," Mrs. Lovett piped up from beside him, and Mr. Todd was jolted back down to earth. "Dont' you worry now, luv. We'll sort this Mr. Church out right proper."  
Somehow, her voice was strangely calming and yet worrying. Mrs. Lovett, the one person in the entirety of London who knew who he was. A devil in her own right. Mr. Todd glanced at her from the corner of his eye, barely giving any response other than a disinterested grunt. Johanna, his salvation. She was almost within his reach.

-

Joseph Church didn't like the look of the couple who entered the tavern, the woman smiling vacantly and the man staring through bloodshot eyes. He liked them even less when he saw the man behind the bar direct the couple towards his table. Church lowered his eyes to his pint of beer, aware that it was early in the day to be drinking and not really caring about that fact. He was a working man, he did his share and he earnt his pay... It was his choice if he wanted to drink it away.

"Mister Church, I presume."

The voice that spoke was pure gravel, a rumble with consonants. Joseph looked up, focussing on the man who had spoken. "Aye," Joseph's own voice was roughened by drink, "That would be me."

"We were wondering if we could talk to you," the woman said, and Joseph had to look twice when she smiled. That wasn't a vacant stare in her eyes, but something different. Something disquieting that reminded him most absurdly of his own mother. Joseph was about to tell her to go preach to someone else but something in that smile stopped him. When he didn't reply, the woman barrelled on. "We were wondering if we could talk to you about a girl. A blonde girl. Name of Johanna, what Judge Turpin might have sent away somewhere."

The man clenched his fists, lips twisting into something resembling a sneer. He looked angry, pained. Joseph did not want to talk to him. "Why dont you talk to the good Judge himself?" Joseph asked, talking into his mug of beer.

"That's not an available option," the man rumbled through his sneer, looking down his nose at Joseph. Joseph stared back at the man, noting the deep circles under his eyes, the strange light in his shale-grey eyes.

"Have you got a problem, mate?" Joseph asked, put off by the man's obvious hostility.

"The world is my problem," the man muttered, but not quietly enough.

Mrs. Lovett shot her companion a look. Mr. Todd fell silent but looked no less hostile, barely hiding his contempt for this establishment, this man they were supposed to be getting information from.

"You'll have to forgive my husband, sir," Mrs. Lovett started, smiling again. Mr. Todd's frown deepened, but a sharp sideways glance from the Devil kept him silent. "He's terrible worried and yet he can't do a thing for it. You see... the girl, Johanna..." Mrs. Lovett paused. She looked uncertain for the breifest of moments. "She's our daughter," Mrs. Lovett said finally. "We were unable to keep her when she was born, we didn't have the money. Judge Turpin took her, kind soul, and found a place for her in a merchant household. We've been out of London for the past few years, making our fortune as it were -" that was believeable, as even if Mr. Todd still looked as shabby as ever, Mrs. Lovett had bought herself new dresses and was currently wearing a confection of maroon taffeta silk. "- now that we're back we wanted to be a family again. Only... only there was a quarrel in the household. Johanna has been sent away and the household refuses to talk about her. Our boy, Anthony, what works in our shop, he heard that you might know where she was. The poor boy was too scared to talk to you himself, so we've taken the afternoon off in the hopes that you might speak to us. Please, sir. We only want our daughter back."

Mr. Todd was staring. He couldn't help it. He knew that Mr. Church was also staring and surely the man would notice something was wrong if he kept looking at Mrs. Lovett, but Mr. Todd couldn't drag his eyes away. _Her husband_?! _Their_ daughter? Mrs. Lovett had been so convincing that for a moment he had wanted to believe her; He had wanted to believe, if only for a moment, that he still had a wife, that he had never been in a prison colony and his years away had been here in England with at least part of his family. Mr. Todd had wanted to believe, for a moment, that he was a normal man, that revenge was not the only fire burning inside him.

Joseph Church was staring for a much different reason. Such an impassioned plea from a lady who had obviously seen hard times. How crass would it be to refuse her the information that she sought. "I might know something," Joseph admitted finally, "something about where your Johanna is. Now I don't know her name," Mr. Chruch began, lowering his voice to a hum that wouldn't carry to the other occupants of the bar. "A girl, one with yellow hair, was taken to the asylum by word of Judge Turpin. It was his beadle that drove the carriage. They say she was like a ghost, so pale she was, staring and silent. That's very queer, you know. Normally those mad folk are screming when they're brought in, or telling rum tales that aren't true."

"The asylum?" Mrs. Lovett gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth in a show of her shock.

"Bedlam?" Mr. Todd croaked. He felt cold, numb from head to toe, only his heart seemed capable of feeling. It burned in his chest, squeezed too tight under layers of ice and hate.

"No," Mr. Church assured them, having fallen hook, line and sinker for their lie - only parents would be so concerned for a mad little girl who had somehow incurred the Judge Turpin's wrath. "Fogg's Asylum on the strait."

Mrs. Lovett glanced at the barber standing beside her. One glance was all it took for her to notice his cold, faraway expression. The same expression that Mr. Todd wore when thinking his most dark, turbulent thoughts. She knew there was a fire burning somewhere inside him, the fuse was lit from within, slowly burning closer to the powder keg he held under his breast. Perhaps it was best to leave before the fire could reach that far.  
"Thankyou, Mr. Church," Mrs. Lovett said suddenly, dipping a quick and lopsided curtsy for the appearance of politeness, "God bless your kindness, sir."

With the air of one who had much practise with the task, Mrs. Lovett looped her arm around Mr. Todd's elbow, clasping his wrist with her hand. Smiling politely, she bustled him out of the shop and down the street, headed back to her pie shop as fast as pedestrian traffic would allow. She chattered nonsense, talking about everything and anything innocuous that came to mind - new fashions she'd seen in a shop window, the price of salt gone up again, perhaps redecorating the parlour room or her boudior. She kept talking long after she had run out of breath, acting the part of a bothersome housewife to make Mr. Todd's glower seem caused by her incessant chattering and not the will to do harm to others.

He dropped her at the gate foot of the stairs to his lofty cell, shaking her off his arm with ease. Mr. Todd's feet pounded on the stairs, the door to his barber shop slamming shut to cut off Mrs. Lovett's cry - "Mr. T, you ought to let that Anthony know that..." - to replace her voice with the jangle of a bell, then silence.

Mr. Todd paced backwards and forwards before the big leather chair in the centre of his shop, turning to the window and back again, touching the razor in its holster at his side. He hated that Mrs. Lovett was right. He knew he needed to let Anthony know what they had heard. Mr. Todd couldn't go himself to discover whether Joseph Chruch's rumours had any foundation in truth, Anthony was much less memorable, much less... disturbing to look at. Johanna was not Mr. Todd's daughter, she was the child of Benjamin Barker. Mr. Todd couldn't claim any paternal rights without explaining who he really was. Not without alerting the Judge to who he really was...

A sudden spark lit his brain. Mr. Todd stopped dead, staring at the leather chair, the beginnings of a plan forming within his mind.

* * *

As the day wound to a close, Mrs. Lovett began the ordeal of trooping up and down the stairs to the basement kitchen, trays of pies held in hands swaddled in thick linnen so she wouldn't burn herself. The smell was mouth-watering, but she wasn't tempted in the least to sample one of the pies for herself. She had a better dinner planned for herself once the store was closed.

Toby watched her from the store front where he stood behind the counter, wiping down beakers and checking the barrels of ale and the smaller firkins of wine. Curiosity was a steady thrum in the back of his mind as he wondered why, time and time again, Mrs. Lovett would refuse his help with carrying the pies. She wouldn't let him near the door to that kitchen, having shooed him away from the steps several times. It wasn't that she was worried about him damaging the product because she let him handle the pies when they were upstairs. She even let him handle the hot trays and use the small oven in the shop front, so it didn't seem to be about a worry for his health.

She certainly wasn't afraid that he would stuff himself with pies, she let him eat as many as he wanted anyway. Although, Toby had begun to wonder whether eating the pies was such a good idea after all.

Mrs. Lovett took three trips up and down the stairs, each time bringing more pies to keep warmed by the oven. As soon as the clock struck six, the doors to the shop were opened, half the pies were gone within the hour.

Toby was busy then, dashing back and forth with a cloth over his shoulder to wipe up spills or dust crumbs from the tables, pouring drinks and collecting plates while Mrs. lovett served the pies. Toby watched the customers as he trotted back and forth, a performer's smile on his face. They were always happy, showing their teeth as they smiled and laughed, joking with one another and their host. So many of their teeth were brown or crooked. Toby saw missing teeth, black teeth, chipped teeth, all of them crunching through the crisp crust to the succlent filling.  
They reminded him of pigs. Fat, happy pigs. Skinny little pigs with missing teeth. Rich pigs. Poor pigs. The mental image disturbed him more than he could say. Many of Mrs. Lovett's pies smelled and tasted as if they were made of pork. Pigs eating pigs. The thought made his skin crawl.

"Excuse me."

The voice that penetrated Toby's thoughts was high and thin. It belonged to a very fat old woman dressed in a velvet ensemble that made her resemble a large, round plum. "Yes ma'am?" Toby answered politely, offering the woman his very best and friendliest smile.

"I would like my money back," the woman said imperiously. She thrust out one pudgy little hand, showing him a plate with a half-eaten pie resting forlornly in the centre. "This pie is certainly nothing like the fabled 'best pies in London' that this establishment claims as its call to fame. I dare say this is the worst pie I have ever had. Please take it back."

Toby faltered only a moment, but recovered swiftly. He nodded and took the plate from her with a short, polite bow. "I'll be right back, ma'am," he assured the plum-coloured woman before quickly turning and disappearing back inside the pie shop.

He took the pie behind the counter and gingerly prised off the top. The meat inside the pie was a strange colour, more grey than brown. Toby lifted the pie up (first making sure none of the other customers could see) and carefully took a whiff of its contents. The smell made him blanch. A sickly sweet, musty kind of smell that seemed familiar even as it turned his stomach. Toby tossed the pie into the oven fire, content to let it burn to a crisp. He took a step away, intending to explain the situation to Mrs. Lovett. Something made him stop though, and instead he simply went to the money box and counted out the price of a single pie.

Toby returned to the woman in plum and handed over her refund with another of his best smiles and a personal apology from the baker.

There were five more such returns within the next two hours, each pie with the same colour and smell. That smell lingered in Toby's nostrils as the shop wound down to a close for the night. He couldn't put his finger on what was so familiar about it. A certain smell. Sweet, almost rotten... The thought came to him all of a sudden as he was stacking dirty dishes by the wash tub. Gangreen!

Toby stared at the plates without seeing them. What sort of butcher would sell someone a cut of rotten meat? Why hadn't Mrs. Lovett noticed it?

"Toby!" Mrs. Lovett's voice called to him from the parlour room. The house was small and didn't have a proper dining room, so Toby and Mrs. Lovett took their meals in the parlour at the small, four person card table. Mrs. Lovett often tried to get Mr. Todd to come downstairs to dine with them, but often to no avail. Tonight was one of those ocassions, the barber's seat was empty.

Toby sat down, placing a napkin in his lap like Mrs. Lovett had instructed him to. He was famished, his stomach rumbling loudly at the sight of a full plate of meat and potatoes doused in gravy. Mrs. Lovett was not a religious woman, so he had no need to say any prayers before tucking in with a will. "Ma'am," Toby said, once he'd eaten enough that his stomach had stopped rumbling so fiercely, "what butcher do you buy your meat from?"

Mrs. Lovett put down her fork, raising her napkin to pat at the corners of her lips carefully. "One what's in the square, Toby. A Mr. Turnbull, he delivers the meat direct like."

It was hard to tell whether she was lying or not, but Toby had a strange suspicion that she was. "I've never seen meat being delivered," he pointed out, poking his remaining potatoes across his plate.

"It's delivered 'round the back," Mrs. Lovett explained, giving him a warm smile, "so nobody sees. It's not good for the customers to see the filling for the pies before it's made up proper. Now, finish your dinner, then off to bed! I'll leave the dishes to soak and you can finish up in the morning."

Any protests Toby had were beaten back by Mrs. Lovett's flapping hands and unwavering insistence that he should go to bed after such a long day. As Toby climbed the stairs to the little room that had become his bedroom he tried not to think about how he couldn't ever remember seeing a butcher's shop that was owned by anyone called Turnbull, or how the smoke from the kitchen downstairs was similar to charring bone and flesh, or those strange clues to do with Mr. Todd's behaviour. He refused to think about all the small clues and things that were coming together in his mind to form one, unpleasant whole. He didn't _want_ to realise that his dear Mrs. Lovett may not be as sweet and wonderful as he had thought.


	5. Chapter 5

Notes: I had intended to write something completely different for this chapter, but I made the mistake of trying to read other people's fiction again. To clarify - I made the mistake of reading attempted Sweeney Todd smut. So now you lot have the dubious privledge of sitting through a little historical accuracy. (Thanks to Aithilin for her help in illuminating a little problem...)

A potential title for this chapter is as follows; Victorians do not wear panties!

* * *

Fogg's Asylum. A large brick and mortar monstrosity standing three whole storeys to the skyline, visible immediately from the very moment you stepped into the street, like a dark and forbidding sentinel. A guardhouse for the insane. It stood on a mandmade outcrop of stone made slimy and mouldy by the damp from the muddy river that protected it on three sides. The other side was guarded by a large iron fence, only a small gate, barely big enough for a carriage to pass through, provided a portal to the outside.

Anthony stood at this gate, looking up at the cold brick facade with its tiny barred windows, hoping for a glimpse of his beloved Johanna. Rationally, he knew that she wasn't likely to appear, but he told himself that there were other reasons for his vigil. How to get into this fortress and rescue his beloved? The windows too small to climb through, the building too sheer to scale, rocks to slippery to approach from the water. Also, all he had was the word of one worker that she was in residence at the asylum. Anthony needed some means of confirmation, some way to make sure that she was there before he even attempted to rescue her.

Anthony stood there so long that someone noticed. Soon there was a mutter of activity inside the gates. The forbidding front door, a relic of the past studded with metal circles embedded in the wood, swung open, its barely oiled hinges creaking in protest to allow a small, portly figure to emerged. The figure was a man, bald under his bowler hat, his suit just as brown and drab as the building he worked in. The man was surprisingly quick on his feet, soon standing near Anthony on the opposite side of the iron gate.

"Can I help you, sir?" The accent was one step shy of Irish, perhaps a foriegner who had been in the country long enough to cleave the rough edges from his vowels. The word _sir _was peppered with a touch of mockery, picking at Anthony's youth and worn clothing.

"Yes," Anthony said, plumbing the depths of his own dishonesty in desperation, searching for a reasonable excuse that might bring him to stare at the asylum for so long. It came to him in a stroke of genius that he only hoped he could pull off. "Could you tell me if there's a young lady called Johanna in residence here?" Anthony asked the question earnestly. He expected the look of suspicion that followed his query and responded as if he were apalled by his own lack of decorum. "Oh! She's my cousin, sir. We were good friends during our childhood. When I heard of her," here he faltered on purpose, just like any good lad would, his look of guilt not entirely made up, "her misfortune, I wrote to her. But my letter was returned unopened, sir. I wondered if there had been some mistake."  
Anthony put on her best immitation of hopeful innocence, praying that it was a good one. He hadn't told a lie since he was a boy. Anthony's won honest nature hated the lie that he was telling now, but he told himself that it as only to save Johanna.

His dishonesty seemed to have done the trick. The man in the bowler hat rolled his eyes skyward as if asking for patience. "Johanna Barker," he recited tonelessly, "second floor, women's section. Is that all?"

"Yes sir," Anthony said, nodding to the man. His heart had leapt into his throat at the mention of her name. Now he knew where she was for certain, and he had learned her last name as well. "Thankyou sir!"

The man shook his head, impatience showing. Without further comment or even any further aknowledgement of Anthony's existence, the man turned and quickly disappeared back into the asylum.

Anthony stood where he was a moment or two more, staring up at the second floor with his eyes trained on its one lonely window. Fleetinly, he imagined that he could see a flash of yellow hair in the darkness. Finally he turned to begin his journey back to his own lodgings, humming a simple tune under his breath. _Johanna_...

* * *

Undressing was a ponderous task. Many buttons needed to be undone, small ties unlaced, layers of cloth drawn away from the body and carried to the clothes press. Still, it was a chore that Mrs. Lovett was glad of at the end of a long day, a chore that when done allowed her to breathe a little easier.

It was late, many hours since the sun had gone down, but only an hour or so since the shop had been closed. Mrs. Lovett's bedroom was lit by candles. One lonely oil lamp on her bedside table remained unlit - she felt it was too late at night and too close to bedtime to light the oil lamp and she only had gas lighting for downstairs. Her bedroom was on the second floor of the house, where there were only two other rooms. One of them was Toby's bedroom, Mrs. Lovett could hear the boy's quiet snores from across the tiny hallway, the other room was a small thing that might once have been intended as a bedroom but that now housed broken furniture, old shoes, and a portrait of Nell with her late husband.

Nellie Lovett sat at a small chair by her dressing table, easing first one foot, then the other, from her boots. Her feet throbbed, aching in a good way now that they were free from their confines. She wiggled her toes through her stockings, noting with dismay that she had a hole in her left stocking that showed her little toe through the thin cotton. The fabric had been darned one too many times already, she would have to buy new ones. It was almost like losing a friend.

With a sigh, Nell began to unbutton the bodice of her dress, feeling one layer of restriction fall away from her torso. Once the dress was undone she stood to remove it from her body. This dress was a new one, and she smiled at the amber silk and black lace before stowing it in her clothes press and sitting back down at her dresser. She had just picked up a horsehair brush to begin combing out her hair when she heard soft footsteps coming up the stair. Mrs. Lovett looked around the room, hoping for something she could cover herself with. Unhelpfully, the only things she could see where her night corset and chemise - laid out on the bed neatly - and the gown she intended to wear the next day.

A thrill of excitement mixed with dismay; she knew there could be only one person bold enough to enter her house in the middle of the night, and it was no robber. Her heart skipped a beat, her skin flushing in the candle-light. Mr. Todd!

He entered the room without warning, simply pushing open the door without seeing the need to knock first. Almost as soon as he had opened the door Mr. Todd stopped dead, frozen in place just inside the door to Mrs. Lovett's inner sanctum. Somehow he had never imagined her as a creature separate from the clothes that she wore. Mr. Todd had never even paid much attention to how her dresses changed from day to day. He had memorised the colour of her hair but couldn't remember what colour cown she had been wearing that day.

Mr. Todd realised he must have been staring when she whispered his name. "Mr. Todd!" On second thoughts it was perhaps more of a hiss than a whisper. "Close the door!"

Mr. Todd's mouth twitched, his eyebrows snapping together into a suden frown. It was impossible to tell what he might have been thinking, whether he was contemplating leaving or if what he had sought her out for was too important for disgust. Seconds that stretched like hours ticked past on a tiny mantle clock by a pitcher of water on her dresser. Eventually Mr. Todd managed to move. He took another step inside the room and closed the door, sealing himself in her chamber. There was something strangely final to his movements, as if he almost thought he would never leave.

Mrs. Lovett sat there at her dressing table, still holding her hairbrush, her wild reddish curls tumbling in a messy halo about her head and shoulders, glowing in the light from the candles. Her skin glowed, tinged with gold that threw the curves and hollows of her form into sharp relief. The tiny hollow at the base of her throat was a dot of shadow, the swell of her breasts a landscape of light and curvesof darkness. Her corset, trimmed in soft lace, bound tight to her flesh from breasts to hips, looked rosy and pink in that light. He had never realised how slender her waist was.

Covering her from hips to knees were soft cotton bloomers that tied at the knee by worn pink ribbons. She still wore stockings, though one had fallen down enough to expose two scandalous inches of calf and shin. It was almost pornographic, and yet somehow she looked less wicked without her dress, more innocent... More human than demon.

An odd expression passed over Mr. Todd's face, only to be replaced by something cold and dispassionate when he cleared his throat. "Mrs. Lovett," Mr. Todd began gruffly, "I've been meaning to ask you something..."

Mrs. Lovett put down her brush, pretending not to feel strange or excited when she turned to look at him. "Yes, luv?"

"Did you... My Lucy..." Mr. Todd cleared his throat again, fighting against a feeling of constriction that made him want to lash out at something, anything. "Were you," he tried again, only to have his throat lock up. Try as he might, the words wouldn't come. Mr. Todd looked away, touching one of his razors and feeling the cold from the silver tingle through his gloved fingers.

"Yes, Mr. Todd," Nellie said, saving him from having to voice the question he had come to have answered. She watched him begin to pace the length of her room, nothing like pity or remorse in her face or voice, "I made all of them fancy sauces that your Lucy used in her cooking."

Mr. Todd's gaze locked with hers, cold accusation in his eyes, fingers stroking the handle of the razor at his right hip. Mrs. Lovett shook her head.

"Lucy," Nell explained softly, soothingly, "was a terrible cook when you met her. Oh, her meals were passable, they were well enough, but they were nothing special and she worried that you wouldn't be happy with what she made. She asked me to teach her - nearly set me kitchen on fire! But the poor thing was so upset, so miserable that she couldn't please you... Lucy asked me to make her my sauces, Mr. T. She paid me when she could but mostly it were a favour like. She did improve on her own a bit before... Well, she did improve a bit on her own."

Mrs. Lovett fell silent, uncertain. She watched Mr. Todd pace. He made two cricuits in silence before he turned to her, such a sad and hopeless look on his face that her heart broke for him - for all that she had been terribly jealous of Lucy, she had always wanted that beautiful Benjamin Barker to be happy. Sorrow struggled with his default hate, she could see the emotions at war on his face, watching his thoughts spiral downwards into the abyss. Sweeney Todd was not like Benjamin Barker at all, but Mrs. lovett still wanted him to be happy. As happy as a man like Mr. Todd could be.

"Lucy." Mr. Todd seemed unaware that he'd spoken the name aloud, his voice ragged. Memories struggled to surface, kept at bay by the cruelty of time, his head full of hatred, revenge, long years in a harsh prison colony with nothing but his innocence to keep him comfort. He had lost his innocence somewhere in the last fifteen years, and with it he had also lost his wife.

Mrs. Lovett clucked her tongue. She stood, covering the space between dressing table and bed in two short steps, that errant stocking falling another inch or two at the movement. She ignored it. Quickly her night things were swept away, placed where they couldn't become rumpled or in the way. Mrs. Lovett approached Mr. Todd from the side, her hands outstretched to take his arm. Gentle, but firm, she gripped his forearm through his shirt and led him to the bed, ordering him to sit down without needing to say a word.

He sat, face blank, struggling to recall what Lucy had looked like. All he could see was Mrs. Lovett, her face flushed from running back and forth in the evening rush, the sound of her voice drifting up to his barber shop from her kitchen far below. He dug deeper, wringing the memory from his very soul until a flicker of golden hair stirred in his mind. Golden yellow hair was all he remembered.

Mr. Todd sighed, releasing the memory to come crashing back down to reality. He found Mrs. Lovett standing in front of him, gazing at his gloved hands with a kind of wry disapproval. For a very breif moment he felt as guilty as a schoolboy, though the feeling was replaced just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only resentment. "What?" he barked.

Mrs. Lovett was unperturbed by his hostility. "You burnt your hands quite badly, didn't you?" she demanded, "I saw them bandages earlier too, Mr. T."

"It's nothing," Mr. Todd grumbled his reply, hating how she managed to remind him at once that he was human and that she had been cooking for him even when he still had Lucy. The reminder was like a tiny needle worming its way into his heart.

"Nothing? Nothing dont need bandages. Let me see them."

Mr. Todd stared back at her in silence, momentarily contemplating how easy it would be to slit her throat right now and soak her corset in blood. His thoughts of murder were brought to an abrupt halt when she sat down beside him and gingerly took his right hand in her own. Delicate fingers peeled the glove from his hand and laid it aside, returning to unwrap his bandages and reveal broken blisters and angry red flesh beneath cracking scabs. It looked disgusting, but Ms. Lovett didn't even flinch. She would have seen worse on many of his victims, Mr. Todd knew, though none of the marks would have been from burns.

Mrs. Lovett looked at him expectantly and Mr. Todd gave her his left hand with only a small amount of reluctance. She removed the glove from his hand with the same amount of delicacy. He watched the glove fall from her hands, the material resting on her thigh, and imagined his own fingers resting there in place of the leather.

"You need to let the air get at them for a time," Mrs. Lovett decreed, "so them blisters can dry out properly. Fancy picking up a boiling pot with your hands! Silly man."

"I'm afraid my temper got the better of me, luv," Mr. Todd growled the strange little joke, forcing his eyes away from the glove on Mrs. Lovett's thigh. He wasn't convinced that she would understand that he was joking in his own dark, very dry way, and was surprised when she smiled.

"It seems to do that a lot," Mrs. Lovett agreed. She eyed his dirty bandages with distate a moment before standing to take them to her dressing table and the small bowl she kept for washing her face and hands. The pitcher on the table filled the bowl with water, which she set the bandages to soak in. "There we are," she said cheerfully. "Now," she told him, looking at him over her shoulder, "you go off to bed, and in the morning I'll have some fresh linen for those hands of yours."

Mrs. Lovett sat down at her dressing table again, taking her up brush to resume the chore of her hair. Mr. Todd sat where he was a moment, flexing his hands, curling his fingers in the air. His glove had fallen to the floor when she stood, it lay there now forlornly, two fingers curled under itself. Slowly Mr. Todd stood, bedsprings creaking in his wake. He stepped forward over the glove to stand behind Mrs. Lovett's chair. He reached down, hands circling her neck, his blistered, red flesh pressing against her unblemished skin. Mr. Todd squeezed a little, both quietly enraged and yet impressed when all she did was still the motion of her brush and close her eyes.

Mr. Todd watched her in the mirror, the flickering candle-light that danced upon her skin. "You deserve to die, Mrs. Lovett," Mr. Todd whispered, leaning in to say the words close to her ear. He felt her curls press against his own dark, unruly hair but paid it no attention in the mirror, his eyes locked on her face.

"We all deseve to die," Mrs. Lovett rejoined just as softly, her voice breathy and her pulse fast beneath her fingers. He remembered saying those words to her when Judge Turpin had escaped his grasp and he had gone just a little bit mad. How appropriate that she should say that to him now, when he felt as if he were only just beginning to grasp how far his sanity had slipped. A deceptively delicate hand raised to cover his. She didn't try to hold his hand or drag his fingers away from her neck.

Slowly, darts of pain lancing through his palms as his blisters brushed her skin, Mr. Todd's hand dipped to her shoulder and spread out across her sternum, fingers splayed abover her breasts. He looked at their reflections in the mirror, seeing them both this time, his own private hell watching him from the glass. Nell's eyes were still closed.

In one abrupt movement Mr. Todd removed his hands from her skin and turned away. He was out of the door before she had opened her eyes, his footsteps echoing down the stairs alongside the slam of her bedroom door.

In the small room across the hall, Tobias Ragg stared up at the ceiling in the darkness. The walls were very thin up here. He had heard almost every word that had been spoken. He knew he needed to know more, but he was afraid of what he might discover.


	6. Chapter 6

Notes: I want to stress again that this is an AU, and that Victorian London was right in the middle of the industrial era. I'm sorry for the rambling in this chapter, but it's necessary. I promise you the next one will be full of action and dialogue.

Also, this story was posted and proofread at two in the morning. If you find any typos or errors, please PM me and I will fix them.

* * *

Toby had been procrastinating all day. He had barely picked at breakfast, which had caused Mrs. Lovett to become concerned and suggest that he might be becoming ill; But Toby knew why he had no apetite, and it had nothing to do with illness.

It had everything to do with sickness.

Toby felt sick, though he knew he wasn't ill. He was feeling queasy, his stomach churning while his mind went over and over the facts. They had to be facts, so why hadn't he run to the coppers? Why was he still here in the shop, trying to get up the courage to ask the kindest woman he knoew whether she was an accomplice to murder? Part of Toby's sickness was confusion. He didn't understand how, if what he suspected (so foul in itself that he didn't think he could look at a piece of meat the same way ever again) was true, he could possibly want to protect Mrs. Lovett. He didn't understand how she could be so kind, so loving, and yet so... cold.

The conflict must have shown on his face, his expression made it painfully obvious that he was thinking of something far more serious than stacking plates.

Mrs. Lovett put a sign up on the front door that read 'closed' and drew the curtains shut. She turned to Toby, her face the perfect picture of motherly concern. Toby wondered whether it was fake and his stomach seemed to drop. A sense of vertigo made the room spin, Toby's eyes found a small stack of innocent pasties; Would he be serving customers in a different fashion someday soon?

Mrs. Lovett was at his side before he knew what was going on, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. "Are you alright there, luv?" she asked, worry pitching her voice lower than normal. "Are you feeling ill? Do you want me to fetch you some tea?"

Toby, who had continued to stare at the pasties, dragged his eyes away from the mangled and broiled remains to look at his benefactor. Something of his fears must have showed.

"Toby..." The baker didn't seem to know how to continue. She stood there looking at him, floundering for something to say. A sad smile appeared on her face and Toby wondered whether she had guessed that he knew. "Shall we sit down?" Mrs. Lovett asked, "and have a tot of gin?"

Toby forced himself to nod, knowing that it was a much stiffer nod than he normally would have given. "Yes ma'am," he agreed softly, unable to raise his voice any louder.

Mrs. Lovett shuffled past to retrieve her gin. When she returned Toby was already seated, staring at the top of the table he sat at, procrastinating again. He remained quiet as Mrs. Lovett poured him a drink. He waited until she had one of her own before he spoke.

"Mrs. Lovett," Toby said, frowning at the table top, "I've been doing some thinking... I want you to know that I'm real grateful to you for taking me in and giving me a job when Signor Pirelli disappeared, but that's just it. That's part of what I've been thinking about... Signor Pirelli never left, did he? I think I woul dhave seen him. He would have gone right past that window there, only I wasn't thinking about it at the time. And if Signor Pirelli never left, then I think he must be dead ma'am." Toby glanced up at Mrs. Lovett to see her face, then quickly glanced away again. "I guess I dont mind about Signor Pirelli that much. He wasn't a nice man and... I mean, I would never have got this place here, with you. You're the best thing what has ever happened to me, ma'am. And that's why this is so confusing...

I knew something was wrong," Toby continued, feeling tears prickle in his eyes, staring resolutely at the table, "when I first met Mr. Todd. He was acting all strange, strange for a barber I mean, but I didn't pay it no mind. He's always been cold, but that's not what bothers me. I been here a while now and I started to notice how not every one of his customers comes out of his shop again. And he never eats your pies, and you don't neither..." Toby took a deep breath to compose himself, blinking back the threat of tears. "The meat in the pies," Toby spoke quietly, afraid to look up and see Mrs. Lovett's facade crumble, "it's people isn't it? People what Mr. Todd kills..."

Toby looked up in time to see Mrs. Lovett's mouth begin to open. "I wont tell," he interrupted her before she could make a sound, dismayed to find that he spoke the truth. He really wouldn't tell. He couldn't. Not with what they'd do to her if anyone found out. "Not a soul, ma'am. I just want to know why... how you can do it? How can you stand it?"

Mrs. Lovett drew a square of fabric from a pocket in her skirt, offering the worn down square of cotton to him in silence. Toby realised he _was_ crying. He swiped angrily at his tears, ashamed that he would cry. Boys his age were not meant to cry.

"Toby," Mrs. Lovet gentled, no facade was lifted, a touch of regret making her sound old, "dear Toby... It's not at all what it seems, luv. It's not as bad as it seems. Mr. Todd... well, let me tell you a story."  
Toby looked at her, doubt shining through his tearful, red-rimmed eyes. Mrs. Lovett shook her head. "You'll see, Toby..."

"Many years ago there was a young man who was deeply in love with his young wife. She was a beautiful young lady, a real nice lady, so nice that nobody could ever really hate her no matter how much they tried. Her name was Lucy. They had a wonderful life together, Lucy and her husband, what with him renting out the shop upstairs for his business and her looking after their little baby girl. They led a real charmed life. Only nothing that good and beautiful lasts forever.  
There was this Judge, a cruel man what didn't care that Lucy was married or in love with her husband. He wanted her for his own, he craved her like nothing else and he was not happy when she turned him down. So this Judge had Lucy's husband arrested. Convicted of theivery what he had never done, an innocent young man was sent away to a prison camp in a land far away, forever exiled.

Of course Lucy was distraught. She was a woman alone now, with no way to support herself or her daughter, still so in love with her convict husband. No matter how many times the Judge asked for her she would never hear him out... Until one night, when he sent his beadle to ask for her. The beadle delivered a message from the Judge that said he was sorry, that he had realised his mistake and had wrongly sentenced her husband. It asked her to go straight to his house where they could begin to set things right.

When she got there the Judge was nowhere in sight. There was a party with everyone in masks so she couldn't tell who was who. Lucy asked to see the Judge but no-one would tell her where he was. He was only waiting. Once Lucy had begun to dispair, disorientated by the drink that had been pressed upon her, the music, and all of the loud talking, the Judge appeared. In full veiw of everyone at that fancy party, he violated her. Though she screamed and cried, nobody would help her, they just laughed at her instead.

When it was over Lucy ran straight to the apothecary. She was in deep despair, everything had been taken from her she thought. He husband, her virtue and faithfulness to him, her child would surely die if she didn't find a way to pay for food. In her sadness she swallowed poison, leaving her baby girl behind.

When the Judge heard what had happened he came and took Lucy's baby. He raised the girl in his house, pretending like she was his own. She was kept locked up inside, hardly ever allowed out of the house even for a moment. That would have been the end of it, Toby, but finally, many years later, Lucy's husband escaped. He changed his name and made his way back to London to be with his wife and daughter... Only he didn't find them, did he? All that kept him going through those years was gone, taken by the Judge that had exiled him. The only thing left behind was his old shop upstairs, and the hope that someday he would find revenge for what had been done. Revenge, and a way to free his daughter from the Judge's grasp.

Time and again the Judge eluded him, always protected, never alone, and never darkening the doorstep of the shop upstairs..."

"He went mad," Toby summarised, glancing up at the ceiling where he knew Mr. Todd would be pacing the length and breadth of the shop. "But you..."

Mrs. Lovett placed a hand over one of Toby's smaller hands, her eyes sad. "I think I went a bit mad a long time ago, back when poor Albert passed away, God rest his soul. And, well, it is a profitable business," she added, the lack of remorse making Toby cringe. Mrs. Lovett sighed. "Go on with you," she said, pulling her purse from its usual hiding place. She selected a penny and gave it to Toby, who noticed now that the purse was one that had belonged to Pirelli. "Why don't you have the rest of the day to yourself, 'ey? Go buy yourself some of them nice toffees and just have a think about things..."

Toby saw Mrs. Lovett's pleading, worried look and nodded. He stood. Suddenly, and impulsively, he quickly moved around the table until he could give the baker a quick hug. "I wont tell anyone anything," Toby said again, a promise this time. Then he fled, before things could get any more confusing than they already had.

* * *

Toby's wanderings ranged far and wide. Thanks to Mrs. Lovett's generosity he looked like a respectable young lad, dressed in the trousers, shoes, shirt and vest that he regarded as his shop clothes. Dressed this way vendors and shopkeeps no longer eyed him warily from the second he appeared, leaving him free to browse their wares without fear of persecution. Toby looked in shops, rifling through stacks of books, trinkets, and other such things. He was preoccupied with other things. He touched the large silver coin in his pocket repeatedly as he thought about Mrs. Lovett.

This change was because of her too. He knew without any doubts that had he been dressed in the clothes he had worn in the workhouse, or with Signor Pirelli, these shopkeepers would have turned him away. In the workhouse Toby had not seen a wage, simply working not to get tossed out on to the street. Pirelli had been much the same, if he worked well enough he didn't get a quick whipping with the Signor's cane. But Mrs. Lovett... she had bought him new shoes and a new set of clothes. She gave him a room of his own and never stinted when it came to food.  
She even paid him a weekly wage, though Toby didn't see it directly. Instead each week Mrs. Lovett put away a little money for him into an account she had opened at the bank. It was meant for when Toby was older, or for if he ever required a sum of money larger than that for sweets. Mrs. Lovett gave him money for sweets too, he remembered, feeling the coin in his pocket again.

Instead of buying toffees Toby found himself at a baker's, where he bought himself a large, sticky fruit bun. He found a seat in the square and sat brooding while he ate, every so often throwing crumbs for the hopeful pidgeons that gathered. Mrs. Lovett was the closest thing to a mother he could remember having. It didn't feel right for him to run away and leave her alone with Mr. Todd, who if he cared at all had a very strange way of showing it. Just the same it didn't feel right to remain an unwitting accomplice to such awful crimes.

Toby got up and walked again. He didn't realise where he was walking to until he had gotten there. A large factory, pouring noxious smoke into the sky, the building at once familiar and disturbing. The workhouse. It was a textile mill and even from the street he could hear the deafening clack and whir of machanised looms. He was lucky to have all of his fingers, he remembered plenty of boys with missing fingertips, cut off trying to rescue an errant thread or just having come too close to the shuttle.

Toby could remember what happened to those unfortunate boys. No doctor, and beatings for wasted thread, wasted time, and blood that needed to be cleaned from machinery and floors. He remembered the dormitory upstairs, footsteps passing over his bed at night, frightened whimpers and the dead, solemn stares of the better looking young boys.

Toby turned away, fists clenched, just in time to notice a pick-pocket making off with the few pence he'd had left after buying the fruit bun. Toby started to go after the pick-pocket, a tall gangly youth in a battered coat, but stopped after just two steps. The older lad was too far away to catch. Besides, he looked as if he hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. This thought in mind, Toby just watched the lad go, his eyes drawn to a beggar at the mouth of an alley the pickpocket had disappeared through.

The great London, most civilised place on the planet. A gray, drizzly city filled with smoke, mud, and beggars. They were everywhere these days, old and young, homeless, stark reminders of how easily misfortune can befall us. They shared alleyways and street corners with whores, often in clusters near the opium dens, begging for a blissful puff of smoke to make their fortunes temporarily disappear.

Even if Mrs. Lovett wasn't arrested if someone told the police about Mr. Todd, she would surely be put out of business. Nobody would buy from her ever again, nobody would trust her. In all likelihood she would become one of those ragged faces that lined the streets. As bas - as misguided - as she might be, Toby couldn't let that happen to her. He couldn't leave her either, not like that. She was in constant danger, not just from Mr. Todd. It stood to reason that if Toby could put it together then so could someone else, and that person wouldn't care whether Mrs. Lovett was arrested or not.

That settled things, Toby sighed. He would have to stay and help her, to take care of her, just in case one of those lurking dangers raised its head.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes**: I finally managed to cobble together this chapter through snippets written on scraps of paper at work, half covered with doodled drawings and the ocassional hastily scribbled phone order. Sorry it took so long. You know the drill, let me know about any big mistakes, or any weird words I might have accidentally stuck in there somewhere...

Yes, they had revolvers in the late 1800s.

* * *

The jingle of the bell above Mr. Todd's door was oddly quiet, just a soft tinkle of sound, strangely reserved considering the young man in the doorway. Anthony paused, he hadn't realised that his friend would be with a client and in such a delicate pose with his razor. It was a good thing Anthony had entered the barber's with less than his normal enthusiasm, he wouldn't have wanted Mr. Todd to slip.  
The barber gave him an icy look, for a breif moment his razor had stilled, placed most disturbingly against his client's throat, so close that Anthony could see the beat of the man's pulse against the edge of the blade. The moment passed, the razor gently scraping a last bit of bristle from the elderly client's jaw.

"I'm terribly sorry for interrupting," Anthony directed his words to the barber's client, knowing that Mr. Todd at least would forgive the intrusion, "I hadn't realised there was anyone already here."

"Quite alright," the old man said, running a hand over his freshly shaven chin. "Quite alright," the man repeated, slowly getting to his feet, "I expect Mr. Todd is becoming quite the popular businessman."

"Young Anthony is a friend, sir," Mr. Todd explained, wiping his razor clean with a piece of cloth. He stowed the razor in its holster and automaticly wiped his hands, giving Anthony time to notice that the barber was wearing flexible cotton gloves. Mr. Todd turned back to his client, trying to force a smile onto his face. He managed it but the expression shocked Anthony, and not just because it looked like a grimance; This was the first time the young sailor had seen Mr. Todd attempt a smile. "I expect it's near time for a short break anyhow."

The old man smiled in return, counting out three tarnished coins into the barber's gloved hand. "Good day Mr. Todd, Mr... er, Anthony."

"Good day Mr. Stenwick," Mr. Todd replied as the old man left, "do come again."

Mr. Todd looked at Anthony. His eyebrows twitched upwards slightly, forcing Anthony to get over his surprise.

"Mr. Todd, I believe I may have found Johanna," the young sailor began, a queer note of sadness in his voice, "only it's worse than I had imagined. She's in Fogg's Asylum, a sanitarium. It's surrounded by the river and slippery rocks on three sides and there's a large iron fence on the other side with only one way in or out. How will I ever get her from there?"

Before Mr. Todd could even begin to formulate an answer the bell above the door jingled again. Irritation arose in him like a fire as Mrs. Lovett trooped into the shop, mouth already running a mile a minute. "Is everything alright today, Mr. T? I just saw that last customer leave and," Mrs. Lovett caught sight of Anthony and immediately changed what she was about to say, carrying on valiantly with only a miniscule hesitation, "he was muttering to himself all the way down the stairs. Right funny old man, that one."

Mr. Todd managed to croak a single word in reply, looking very peculiar. "Johanna." Anthony stared, surprised and perturbed by the short silence that followed the name. Mr. Todd had gone dead white, making the dark circles around his eyes even more pronounced; He stared at nothing, looking in Mrs. Lovett's direction without really seeing her.

Mrs. Lovett's mouth dropped open just a tiny bit. "Your Johanna," she breathed, her eyes snapping to Anthony's face only after she'd spoken. "Mr. Todd has told me all about her. Your Johanna, Judge Turpin's ward, a tragic beauty she is."

"Oh, yes, she's very beautiful," Anthony agreed, breathy and gentle, "but... but very sad. I should like to see her smile."

The thought of Johanna's sad but beautiful face was enough to knock thoughts of any strange behaviour from his head. Already Anthony had subconsciously begun to form a theory concerning Mr. Todd's odd reactions to Johanna. Those suspicions were still burried, lurking in the dark, overshadowed by his deep desire to see Johanna free to accept his love.

"Hair." Mr. Todd sais suddenly, still staring in Mrs. Lovett's direction with his eyes a little unfocussed. Slowly his gaze travelled upwards, sliding past throat and face until intensely focussed upon Mrs. Lovett's wild, reddish curls.

"I'm sorry?" Anthony asked, frowning, "I'm not sure I understand."

"Where do you suppose wig makers get their hair?"

"Well, from people who sell it to them," Anthony replied, his bemusement clear in both his face and voice.

"But not everyone whose hair is sold profits from the transaction," Mr. Todd mused, slowly following the twists and curves of a lone lock of hair that had fallen from its pins to hang at the side of Mrs. Lovett's face. In shadow the curls looked dark, almost black, in light they were a dark cherry red that made him wonder if she used some kind of dye. But no... if he thought very hard he could vaguely recall a flash of that same colour adorning her head when she was younger. When he was younger. "A wig maker may find himself at hospitals, asylums, paying the warden for hair of a specific colour."

"Johanna has yellow hair," Anthony stated, an inkling of what the barber was saying beginning to creep through his mind. "So... If I pretend to be a wig maker after her hair I can get into the asylum and find her. But how can I get back out?"

Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett exchanged looks. Anthony had no idea what they might be thinking, but Mrs. Lovett seemed to know exactly what the barber meant because she said quietly; "There's one in Albert's old set of drawers. It's small, maybe rusted."

"He wont need to use it," Mr. Todd told her, eyes flashing dangerously.

Without another word Mrs. Lovett turned on her heel and fled from the shop, taking the stairs two at a time. Anthony could hear the clack of her heels with every thump on the stairs, playing an uneven and hurried rhythm. He looked at Mr. Todd, uncertain. Unconcerned, the barber sat down in his own chair and without thinking, raised a hand to stroke the handle of his favourite razor. "Now then," he said, "if you are going to be convincing then there's a bit you'll need to know about hair..."

* * *

The basement kitchen was large and dimly lit. There was no electricity or gas light down here, only a few well placed lamps and the oven fire to illuminate the room. Built into the far wall was the oven, a larger than life monstrosity with huge iron doors and six racks for pies. There was a hatch in the bottom of the door for feeding the fire and a little round window in the middle of the door to allow the baker to see the pies as they cooked. The centre of the big room was taken up by a massive, heavy table sporting large chopping boards and enormous meat cleavers. A grille in the floor just in front of the table seemed to cover a square hold that led right down into the sewers.

To the right was empty space but for a lonely peg hung with a stained apron. To the left was the big meat grinder and large metal tubs for carting around the chopped or ground meat. Nearby there was a chute in the ceiling almost like a large chimney. Toby refused to stand directly beneath it as he looked up. He hoped he was never in here when one of the bodies dropped through, though Mrs. Lovett had assured him there would be none today.

She was here with him, standing by the meat grinder beside a tub of what looked like oddly shaped steaks. She waited until Toby's attention was back on her before beginning her instruction.  
"The meat goes through the grinder three times," she said, putting some of the meat frm the tub into the horrible machine to show him. "To grind the meat you turn the crank," she showed him how to turn the handle, muscles in her arms tensing beneath the fabric of her stained, flower-dusted work dress, "and it comes out here. Always put one of these tubs down first or the meat will end up on the floor... Toby, luv? Are you alright, dear?"

Toby, who had begun to look a little green around the edges, quickly bobbed his head. "I'm fine, ma'am." It's just that he could guess why the meat had to go through three times.

Mrs. Lovett gave him a skeptical look, almost deciding to stop her narration before another look at the stubborn cast of the boy's chin changed her mind. "I'll still be doing all the chopping myself," she told him, "so you don't need to worry about that. Anyway, I only take the good stuff, the big muscles and that. The rest of it goes into the ovens until it's all ashes or I put it down the sewer if it's small enough to get washed away."

"What do you do with the clothes?" toby asked, despite his queasiness. Secretly he was impressed that he'd even asked anything at all.

"They go into the oven too," Mrs. Lovett told him, nodding, "shoes, hats and all. I'll keep something if I think it's worth the bother but most of the time it's a lost cause, isn't it?"

"Yes ma'am," Toby replied automaticly. He looked around the bakehouse again and shook his head. "I'll never be able to eat another piece of meat in me life."

Mrs. Lovett smiled slightly. "Mr. T feels the same way," she said fondly, "can't say I blame you. I can't serve anything but fish and chicken these days"  
And now she could afford both. Her eyes lifted to the ceiling, Toby following suit only a moment later as the muffled sounds of pacing began filtering down through the chute. "We owe a lot to Mr. To, Toby," Mrs. Lovett said, thinking of the fish she could afford to buy since her pie shop had begun to flourish.

"I know," Toby replied, "and he owes a lot to you too."

* * *

Raven, dark and glossy black. Coal, matte black, darker than dark. Mahogany, a rich brown with undertones of red. Chestnut, medium brown. Apricot, the shade between ginger and blonde. Johanna was corn flax – the palest shade of yellow before white. Corn flax with a tight natural curl and a hint of gold in the sunlight. Mrs. Lovett, Anthony thought out automatically (because the window's hair was what Mr. Todd had used as an example), was a dark cherry red with flyaway curls. Until that afternoon Anthony had never known just how complicated hair could be.

The weight in his waistcoat made him nervous. He had walked away with a dangerous looking old revolver pistol, just a little rusted towards the handle. The mechanisms all worked, Mr. Todd had tested them while the gun was unloaded. Therein had lain another small surprise, Mr. Todd had handled the revolver as if he had done so in the past and though he looked less comfortable with the gun than with his razors it had seemed almost… natural. The barber gave the impression of a man who had not only held, but also used firearms before.

Anthony had never handled anything more suspicious than a hunting rifle, then only in the pursuit of an animal. To hold something in his coat pocket and know that its most basic intention was to harm another human being was unsettling.

He could not go to the asylum tonight. It was too soon after his last visit, he may still be recognized. In the meantime Anthony would bide his time. He would seek work for a week or two's time, work that would not object to his bringing a woman on board if necessary… Perhaps a passenger boat. Somewhere that guns and deception would not be needed.

Suddenly, and quite inexplicably, Anthony found himself wondering about the last owner of the pistol. How exactly had Albert Lovett died? When too, for he couldn't actually recall anyone mentioning it. Had it been recent then, that Mrs. Lovett still had his things, even expensive items that she could have sold? Or had she been so devoted to him that she had kept his belongings out of love, or perhaps greif?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes**: One of the schools I went to as a child was right next to a cemetary. The cemetary was equipped with its own crematorium and on some days the smell would carry down to the school grounds. My highschool was also close to a bonemill, so close that you could smell the bone charring if the wind blew right. I combined my experiences of both smells in this chapter...

* * *

Great big black billows of smoke blowing on the wind, a foul, yet distubringly tantalising scent carried in the smog. Several persons in the neighbourhood had complained about it. The smell, like burning meat, riddled with odd wisps of things like charring hair, woodsmoke, and the slightest hint of braised onions. It was at one disgusting, and yet enticing. If you stood too long and breathed too deeply you would begin to feel sick and hungry at the same time.  
Was that her pies? They asked, Was that what they smelled like when they were baking? What an odd time to be baking too, they said, but they supposed it was the only time she could find to do it. Digusting, foul smell, conjuring up images of blackened brisket bones, dog food, meat roasted until it was so tender all you had to do was touch it and a piece would simply slide off.

Some neighbours didn't complain. They shut their windows against the breeze and surrounded themselves with dried flower packets, far too polite to consider discussing the dreadful smells. Others had already gone to the police, who had informed them that bad smells were not a cause for arrest. If they were, hundreds of people would be out of jobs as factories were closed down and everyone who broke wind in public would be arrested.

Nobody was satisfied with that answer but most were content to go home and forget trying to get the police to step in. Disgruntled and cursing that woman baker, they retired for the night and hoped for a change in the wind. But one or two people did not go home. These enterprising bodies went elsewhere in their search for justice. They went directly to the scource of justice, a man in charge of justice, a man who was justice. They sought audience with the honourable Judge Turpin.

It was only days later that the Judge took action, sending a man of his own to investigate the matter. That man was Beadle Bamford, and he was knocking on Mrs. Lovett's door. Impatiently he waited on the step, checking his pocket watch as the seconds ticked on. His next knock on the door was more like a hammering, the door rattling on its hinges.

"Alright, alright, keep your trousers on!" The voice sailed up from below his feet and the beadle looked down in surprise. To the side of the building was a set of doors that obviously led down to a cellar of sorts, those doors were open, and moments later he saw the top of Mrs. Lovett's head appear as she trooped up a flight of stairs to meet him. "Now, what's so bloody important that -... Oh! Mr. Bamford," her demeanour changed instantly from irritation to a polite smile in the space of a second. "What can I do for you, sir?"

Mrs. Lovett led the beadle downstairs into the dimly lit kitchen. The smell was even worse down here and mixed with a hint of sewerage, a smell so forbidding that the beadle was forced to cover his mouth and nose with a handkercheif. A fire was burning in the big oven, and through the circular window a pile of charring offal was just barely visible.

"It's the rubbish, sir," Mrs. Lovett explained politely, "and the sewer. This grate here in the floor, it goes right down to a man sewer pipe and there is where we toss the innards so's they don't make a mess. I get my meat straight off the animal, that's why my pies are so succulent. Only polite folk don't want to see animal bones or guts being carried out of the shop. So we put them in here," she gestured to the oven, "until they're nothing but ash."

The beadle considered this information, wandering around the kitchen to look at the table - dusted lightly with flour and carrying reams of fresh pastry covered in muslin - the grinder, the area she obviously used for butchering where the floor was stained a little and a dirty brown-red. Beadle Bamford had not been in many establishments like this, but as far as he could see the kitchen was clean enough; No rats or droppings, very little grime or grease clotting in the corners of the grinder.  
As for the widowed baker's explanation, the beadle found himself in a unique position not often afforded to him. He understood. And as he understood it, Mrs. Lovett was not breaking any laws as she might have been if her shop were not in an area directly surrounded by other shops. Though the stench was undesirable... it also appeared to be unavoidable.

"I am sorry ma'am," the beadle spoke, looking down his nose at the cloth covered pastry that would soon become pie crust, "it appears I have wasted your time for nothing." By that he meant that he had wasted _his_ time. For nothing.

"Oh, now sir, I wouldn't say that." Mrs. Lovett fluttered her eyelashes at him, a gesture he noticed was most becoming of her. "I happen to know that Mr. Todd has an opening in his schedule tonight, and wouldn't you know it! I remember Mr. T saying just the other day what an honour it would be if the well respected Beadle Bamford would come to _him_ for a shave." The woman smiled at him and took his arm, beginning to lead him back up the stairs and out into the relative light of the lamp-lit night. "Why I'm sure he'd be so pleased he'd even do you at no charge. So long as you told folks where it was you got such a dashing close shave."

Mrs. Lovett winked, switching her hips so that her skirt bumped his side. Suddenly Beadle Bamford got an inkling. He smiled. Mrs. Lovett was still a fine, attractive woman, for all that she was middle aged and spent most of her time covered in a fine layer of flour, puttering around in a dingy kitchen. She was a fine, attractive woman who also needn't worry too much about her personal reputation. A dallyance with the local law would not affect the number of customers her pie shop brought in.

"Perhaps a quick shave couldn't hurt," Beadle Bamford agreed, allowing Mrs. Lovett to take him upstairs to the barber shop.

The bell chimed as Mrs. Lovett entered the shop. Mr. Todd turned, expecting to see her alone, perhaps carrying a tray of something or a cup of steaming tea. He did not expect to see her on the arm of another man. That was all that registered for a moment, that Mrs. Lovett had brought someone upstairs, that she was acting as though this someone was very familiar to her. A stab of anger made his face darken breifly, his palms throbbed to remind him of her past misdoings. Then he saw who it was that she had brought and the anger turned into something else. Mr. Todd's eyes locked with hers, just long enough to see the wicked little glint she was holding in them. Oh, she was a devil.

Mr. Todd put a smile on his face, and bowed slightly. "Beadle Bamford," he drawled, "a pleasure as always, sir."

Mr. Todd smiled still more deeply and bade the beadle to alight on the large leather chair in the middle of the room.

"Ingenius design," the beadle remarked, setting his feet on the odd built-in foot rest, "it's very comfortable." Surprisingly so, in fact.

"The chair is manufactured to make my services as enjoyable as possible," Mr. Todd replied. He liked to hear the metallic pop that preceeded the chair's collapse into a ramp, and the hiss of fabric as the corpse slithered into the chute through the open trap door. Eveing the beadle's middle, Mr. Todd wondered if this man would even fit through the chute. Light flashed on silver. Mr. Todd unsheathed his favourite razor and flicked it open with a flourish that made the silver wink. The barber barely restrained himself from winking back. He looked at Mrs. Lovett, offering her a cue. He wanted to be alone to savour the moment.

"I'll just pop downstairs and make some tea for you gentlemen. How do you like your tea Mr. bamford?" Mrs. Lovett asked sweetly.

"No milk," the beadle replied absently, settling himself into the chair properly, "one cube of sugar."

Mrs. Lovett dipped and impromptu curtsy before scurrying back downstairs. Mr. Todd could hear her footsteps recede, pattering as fast as his heartbeat and dropping away into silence. Mr. Todd drew his razor across a strap, making sure the edge was as keen as he could make it. Once, twice, like a lover's caress. he had waited so long for this, so long and now part of his revenge was once again within his grasp. No more waiting! He had waited long enough. Mr. Todd turned again to the beadle and smiled one last time.

A single slashing motion and it was over. Blood sprayed, drenching his shirt cuff and spraying droplets across his vest. The beadle's eyes were comically wide, staring at him in disbelief as the light drained. Mr. Todd slammed the lever for the trap door and the dying mess disappeared. There was a crunch, the trap door shut. The bell over the door jingled as Mrs. Lovett entered with a tea tray, with only one cup of tea.

* * *

"Now, it's your own fault, luv." A heavy thud echoed around the room, accompanied a second later by a squelchier thump as something large and covered in fat hit the floor. "For taking up with that man, becoming his servant, all in th name of money and power." The cleaver hacked joint from torso and Mrs. Lovett shook her head sadly. "You had the wrong motivation, dear. And now look where it's got you." A head rolled a few feet, coming to a stop beside the grinder. Mrs. Lovett clucked her tongue at it. "There's no use running away now. You'll just have to face it. You're dead, and that's what comes of sending innocent men into exile, or to the gallows."

"Here at least," she added, peeling layers and layers of fat away from the Beadle's torso to get at the few bits of meat beneath, "we can make something of you. You'll get turned into a nice, crispy meat pie all smothered in gravy on the inside. You'll get to make people happy, instead of making them miserable"  
Mrs. Lovett threw the fat into a small wheelbarrow beside the table, wrinkling her nose at the wet slap. "Lousy sod," she said, "I bet all you ate was cakes."

It took such a small time to separate the decent meat from the Beadle's body. The small mound was pitiful, lumpy, and all of it dark meat. The rest of it Mrs. Lovett piled into her wheelbarrow and took to the oven. A life of rich living, paid for by Judge Turpin's pocket, had rendered the Beadle almost as unhelpful in death as he had been in life. The five pound in his pockets made up for that, a little. And the brass buttons on his waistcoat. At least it made Mr. Todd a little happier. Although... happier might not be the right word for it.

Mr. Todd had tried to sit down and drink the tea that Mrs. Lovett had brought. He got so far as settling into the small wooden seat in front of Lucy's old bureau, now just a table where he kept his pots full of soap and his brushes. He had sat down, the cup of tea in front of him, and had even taken a sip before he had spontaneously leapt to his feet again. The chair propelled back by the force of his movement, it teetered a moment but didn't fall.  
Mr. Todd paced restlessly back and forth across the length of his shop, listening anxiously for the sound of Mrs. Lovett's voice filtering up from below. She wasn't there. Not yet. His ears strained, trying to hear her footsteps, listening for the sound of the door. He paced, then stopped and fell silent, breathing as quietly as he possibly could. He paced again, growing more and more anxious with each passing moment.

Somewhere there was a distant clang. Mr. Todd stopped; He stood as still as he possibly could, body as taut as a bow string. Soon he heard the sound of footsteps, distant and soft, coming from below. A scrape was a body being dragged across the floor. Then... yes, yes, that was it.

Mr. Todd looked back at the cup of tea he had left on the bureau. It was no longer steaming, but it may yet be warm enough to drink. Certainly still warm enough to drink. The barber hesitated, creeping towards the cup of tea as if it were something dangerous, a hand on the holster that held his best razor. He dragged the small wooden chair back into place, sitting down only slowly, as if he expected it to bite. The tea sat in front of him, innocent and aromatic. Dimly, Mr. Todd wondered if this was what domesticity felt like - he couldn't remember how it felt before.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes**: Can anyone guess what Anthony's problem is? It's a good thing I don't seem to have any Anthony-fangirls reading this story or someone might be starting to get upset during this chapter. I may have butchered the Asylum scene, or possibly how Asylums used to work, but I couldn't help it. I spent parts of this chapter giggling insanely. And don't worry, the next chapter will be almost entirely about our dear Mr. Todd.

* * *

It was enough to drive a person insane. For Johanna, who had never really been in a stable environment, it was enough to confirm what she'd always known of the world. The world was a dark place with very little light in it, just like the big cell-like room she inhabited with other girls of her age. It was dirty, filled with crawling things that would bite if you tried to shoo them away from you. The light filtered in from a small window high up in the stone wall, the window had bars fitted into it, no shutter, and no pane. The world was cold, damp. Only small barriers kept its cruelty at bay; A thin blanket, a patched smock.

Johanna felt like the only sane person in the world, which really made her the only insane person.

The other girls were a lot like her in some ways. They were quiet, except for when they talked to themselves or cried in their sleep. Some of the girls talked with one another but they were always cautious, they always spoke as if someone hostile might hear them and come swooping down from the darkness to break their conversation apart. Sometimes something did swoop down from the darkness. Preceded by a clank and the sound of expensive shoes against the stone floor, the warden would arrive to peer in through the doorway. Sometimes he came inside to see how they were doing, and to administer sweets to those girls the doctor had said were doing nicely that day.

There were no nurses. Only doctors. Faceless, spectacled doctors who all look the same and spoke from behind the same clipped accent. Their bags were full of strange things used to measure and poke, vials of liquid that made Johanna want to throw up... but never on the doctor's shoes, or she would be slapped.

Sometimes she wondered whether this was a better fate for her than the one that had awaited her at home. Better here than married to the only father figure she knew? Better here where they aknowledged that she was locked away than pretending that she was free inside a gilded cage?  
Sometimes Johanna wondered whether anyone remembered her at all. Would Judge Turpin come to get her after a reasonable time had elapsed or would he let her languish in the sanitarium? Would she want to go home if she could?

* * *

In the plan of his life, amongst the list of things that Anthony once saw himself doing, impersonating a wigmaker was not on that list. It was funny how life did that sometimes, twisting and writhing in on itself until the things you thought you would never do were the things you now had to do. Ever since his very first job Anthony had been saving for the life he imagined for himself. A small cottage in a small town, a wife, children, and a steady job at sea to provide income and adventure. His plan hadn't wavered a bit since he was a young boy, even then he'd known exactly what he wanted. Until he first saw Johanna. Now though many essentials of his plan hadn't changed, their execution had become a little different from his imaginings. A suit, bought with a little of his savings, draped neatly over his frame, his hair recently trimmed to be respectably short, his shoes shined. His jacket was heavy with the revolver pistol that Mrs. Lovett had given him - he had needed to weight the other side so that it hung right. Consequently the weight on his shoulders had been given physical form, dragging him down a little and making him nervous.

Today, as Anthony Pierce, apprentice wigmaker, the sailor had an appointment with the porter at Fogg's Asylum. He had already needed to hand over a small bribe to ensure some of the man's time, the inherent greed in men of such self-inflated importance made Anthony wonder how much more he would need to pay just to buy his time. Not that paying was a problem. Anthony would sell his soul for Johanna.

Anthony waited as calmly as he possibly could under the circumstances, silently reciting everything that Mr. Todd had made him learn about hair. He had just gotten to Johanna's description when a small, pasty man entered the room. Anthony hastily stood and offered the man a quick bow and a handshake; The porter's hands were soft and unpleasantly sticky, his grip limpid enough that Anthony couldn't help imagining that he was shaking warm seaweed and not a hand.

"Mr. Pierce," the porter spoke with his nose in the air, an affliction not entirely caused by Anthony's height, "I understand that your master is interested in the purchase of hair from this establishment."

"Yes," Anthony confirmed, "we currently have a very difficult customer who was very specific in her wishes. It is my master's hope that you may be able to help us."

"Of course. We believe it's good for our patients to feel themselves to be a useful part of society."

What rubbish, Anthony thought to himself. Perhaps, if his experience of the world has been nothing but men like this, entitled and unpleasant, Anthony felt he could understand why his friend Mr. Todd was so bitter. "That's very conscientious of you," Anthony made himself reply, covering the way they wanted to stick in his throat with a polite cough. "Now, I don't pretend to know what a man like yourself knows about hair. Just how knowledgeable are you in that area, sir?"

The porter smiled. If anything it made him appear even more unpleasant, exposing teeth that were an odd shade of gray. "I know one colour from the other," the porter said, "though I would gague myself as far from an expert. Your master didn't say what colour hair you were looking for in his note."

"Yellow hair," Anthony provided in the layman's terms, "pale yellow hair the colour of cornsilk."

"I know just where to look. Follow me, Mr. Pierce. Don't be alarmed now, all of our patients are practically harmless."

The porter led the way further into the asylum, which was as dark and forbidding on the inside as it had been on the outside. Damp, with very little light. It reminded Anthony of the very bottom level of the last ship he had worked on, all covered in slimy green algae. "We keep the blonde ones in here," the porter spoke suddenly, drawing Anthony from his musings. The porter had stopped at a large door with an iron bolt for a lock, a small window high up in the door hinting that it was brighter inside the room than in the corridor, though not by much. The porter struggled with the bolt, twisting it this way and that before it would open. The door swung in on its hinges without prompting, exposing a large room lined with many rotting bits of furniture and filled with grimy young women. "It's as good a way as any to sort them," the porter added. "Alright girls, come stand in a line so the nice man can see your pretty hair."

Slowly, reluctantly, the thin, pale group of girls and women formed a line near their beds. Each and every one looked cowed or scared in some way - Anthony was struck by just how much this place looked like a prison. A prison for people who's only crime was not their fault. Anthony began to feel ill but he forced himself to remain composed. Without waiting for a prompt he began to inspect the girls one by one, even though he knew with just a glance which one he had come for. It would be too suspicious to go straight to her, no matter how much he just wanted to draw her into his arms and never let go.

Anthony was careful to look at each girl, inspecting their hair, perhaps touching a lock as though to see how coarse or how fine it was. Each girl tugged a little at his heart, pretty soiled doves with haunted eyes, most of which were red with tears... But when he finally came to Johanna he knew without a doubt that she was the one for him. Recognition flared in her eyes as he looked at her hair, a lingering touch confirming that her curls were just as soft as he'd always imagined.

"This one," Anthony announced, "this is the one."

Johanna's eyes filled with tears. Anthony was momentarily struck dumb by her beauty, rendered breathless. All at once the moment was pushed aside, ruined by the porter who came forward to usher Johanna out into the hall. "I trust you've brought your equipment," the smaller man said, waiting for Anthony to follow.

"Yes," Anthony stuttered breifly, looking at the open door, the passageway back into the sun and light. A flash of inspiration made him stop in his tracks, a hand slipping into his coat. "Yes," he said firmly, drawing out the pistol, "now don't make a fuss, sir, and I wont have to shoot. I'm taking the girl and there will be no arguments. Now please, release her and step back inside with your hands where I can see them."

The porter's jaw had dropped. So had the hand pushing Johanna along. The man gaped at the gun, completely flummoxed. Then he said something that made Anthony feel much the same as the porter looked. "Are you a relative?"

"Excuse me?" Anthony asked, now looking uncertainly at the smaller man over the top of the gun which, despite the sailor's bafflement, remained firmly pointed at the porter's chest. The ensuing silence gave him time to realise that the girls were all silent, most of them staring at the floor or across the room. Anthony's unease grew.

"Are you her family," the porter repeated impatiently, "a blood relative or guardian?"

"I'm her," Anthony paused, skipping over the word 'fiance' at the last second for something a little less presumptuous. Johanna would marry him, he was certain of that, still he wanted to actually ask her first. "Brother," Anthony provided finally, "I'm her brother."

"For heaven's sakes," the porter exclaimed, glaring at him as if he'd just done something incredibly stupid. "Then there's no need for ridiculous theatrics! Asylums only exist because families don't want to be burdened, you silly boy. Put that gun away at once. Quickly, before you hurt someone!"

Confused and yet heartened (it appeared he wouldn't need to break any particular laws after all) Anthony put the gun back into his coat. He dared a glance at Johanna, his heart pounding, she looked so hopeful that it hurt. "So... I can just... take her?" Anthony asked, not sure he should dare to believe it.

"There is a fee," the porter explained, shooing Johanna and Anthony away from the door so that it could be shut again and locked; "For housing and medical care. However you are essentially free to take your sister with you. Next time," he snapped, small, beady eyes flashing, nose stuck in the air, "you should simply ask before wasting my time with juvenile schemes."

Anthony couldn't stop the grin that crept onto his face. He couldn't wait to tell Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett about this!

* * *

The next hour passed in a blur. Anthony waited in the same room as he had been shown to before while Johanna changed out of the overlarge white smock she had been wearing and into the dress she had been admitted in. He signed and official looking piece of paper and paid the large, though not exorbitant, sum of money required for the care Johanna had recieved. Finally she herself reappeared, a strange mix of worlds in a sportless blue dress, her hair and face still grimy. Anthony escorted her outside and immediately hired a carriage to take them away before someone thought to check who Johanna was and saw that she had no brothers.

They had been in the carriage for only a few short minutes before Johanna spoke. "You came for me."

Her voice was enchanting, Anthony thought. Soft and musical, it was like listening to a song. "Of course I did," he told her, "I love you."

"You've hardly met me before now," Johanna's pretty blue eyes were downcast, her small hands clasped demurely in her lap.

"I don't need to have met you," Anthony said, giving in to the urge to gently lay his hand on top of hers. She flinched a little at first but didn't pull her hand away. Anthony smiled, "to know that you were sad. Johanna, all I've thought about since I first saw you was how I wished I could make you happy. I'm not a rich man, or an educated man, but I would like to give you a new life, one where I can see you smile. Johanna, I would like to marry you."

Johanna looked up at him then, her blue eyes filled with tears and her face torubled. "I have never even heard your name," she whispered, voice catching in her throat.

"It's Anthony. Anthony Pierce. I'm a sailor, or I was until very recently."

"Anthony," Johanna repeated, now looking at where his hand lay on top of hers. "And you love me." Johanna's forehead creased with a tiny frown but Anthony didn't push her. Johanna remembered him from when he had watched her sing. She must have liked him then, he knew, to have thrown down her key. "You rescued me," Johanna said softly, a single tear carving a white, clean path through the grime on her face. "I... I will marry you, Anthony Pierce. I know you are a kind man..."

Johanna's voice gave out then. The tears came fast and furious, falling from her chin and onto their joined hands as the young lady was overcome by everything that had happened to her. A handkerchief was gently pressed into her hands, a clean, white square of cotton that felt like a symbol of everything her life was to become. She expected no luxury in her new life except that which she scraped together, but that was ok. Much better to be living free in a world where she had to make her own way than caged in a life of luxury.

And Anthony's heart leapt. He had never seen her looking more beautiful.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes**: I'm not dead! And the last chapter is pretty much half finished already. After this one there's maybe one and a half to go. Sorry for the delay, life kind of go tin the way for a while...

* * *

The Judge was like an itch that Sweeney Todd just couldn't reach, an irritation that vexed him, drawing his focus, leading him to distraction. The man was an itch that needed to be scratched. Mr. Todd had just the right razor to scratch him with.

The barber paced the length and breadth of his shop, prowling like a caged bear. He muttered to himself, voicing a stream of consciousness under his breath, not even aware that he was doing so.

Mrs. Lovett's noise had long since stopped, replaced by a jumble of sound from her shop. Every so often he heard the bell above her shop door tinkle, or a bubble of laughter bursting from the patrons below as they supped ale with their generous helpings of pie. The beadle might be in those pies, Mr. Todd found himself thinking, a vicious little thrill of satisfaction tingling down his spine. No, he realised, not those pies. The beadle would be in the grinder yet, bones stripped and ready for burning, guts sluiced away and anything of value tucked away into Mrs. Lovett's pockets. Justice. He deserved it after everything he had done.

But the Judge persisted in his mind, a venomous mix of memory and hate. The hate surged of a sudden. For a moment the barber wondered if it would be easier, perhaps of more value to the world, to slit his own throat. That was a coward's solution, he decided. He had not survived fifteen long years at labour, in exile, to make a coward's choice.

How. That was the question. How to bring the judge to him? How to do the deed without arousing suspicion? There were no longer thoughts of just getting the job done; Of going to Turpin's house, slitting his throat and awaiting the consequences. Mr. Todd didn't seem to have realised it yet, but he wanted to survive. He wanted to go on after Judge Turpin's life had been extinguished. To go on meant to devise a means of diverting suspicion. The Judge must simply disappear. There must be nothing to link him to the barber shop. That meant, Todd realised that there could be no written note. A messenger then. The boy perhaps, to tell the Judge to come to the barber shop at once.

Why? Why should Judge Turpin come to him? What could motivate a man of such self righteousness? What was the weakness of any man, the barber realised. Women. "Johanna," Mr. Todd breathed. The idea came upon him in a rush that left him reeling. It was ingenious, it was perfect, and it was completely true. Spurred into action, the barber was out the door and down the stairs before he realised what he was looking for. He glanced left and right through the courtyard, pushing through the throng to burst into Mrs. Lovett's pie shop.

She was behind the counter loading pies onto a tray to sell, using metal tongs to gently pluck the reheated pies from the small shop oven. She looked up to brush a stray curl from her eyes, leaving a streak of flour across her forehead. When the baker saw him her eyes went wide. Mr. Todd looked wild, animal, caught in the fever of his plan.  
"Mr. T!" she gasped, "is something the matter?"

"I need the boy," Mr. Todd spoke impatiently, voice and eyes filled with fervour. "Where is the boy?"

Mrs. Lovett looked at him strangely for a moment. She raised her voice, calling in the direction of the basement; "Toby!"

"Coming!" The boy's voice came up from below, preceding him by only a second. The boy carried yet another tray of pies, these ones only just baked. "Yes ma'am?" Toby asked, setting his tray down on the table.

"Mr. T was wishful of you," Mrs. lovett nodded to the barber.

Toby looked at Mr. Todd with open apprehension. It was hard to trust a man who looked to fanatical, let alone one who was also a murderer.

"Toby," Mr. Todd said, subconsciously raising a hand to stroke his razor. "I need you to deliver a message for me."

Solemnity made the boy look much older than he was as he gazed up at the barber. "When was you wanting it to be delivered, sir?" The 'sir' was added as an afterthought and only because Toby felt that it may not be a good idea to purposefully put himself at odds with the man. That light in Mr. Todd's eyes could not be a good thing.

"Immediately." Mr. Todd's reply was quick, the words clipped from his mouth like they were being cut with the razors he loved. "Now. I need you to run to Judge Turpin's house and tell him that Johanna has been kidnapped by Anthony -"

"Mr. T!" Mrs. Lovett's startled gasp wasn't even enough to make the barber pause. Her hands flew to her mouth; Toby could only imagine that this was some scandal that he'd yet to hear of.

"- and he will be bringing her to my shop," Mr. Todd barged on, anticipation bringing a growl to his voice, " tell him I am an honourable man and wish only to make amends for this offence."

Toby hesitated. "And," he asked timidly, "should he ask why you haven't sent for the police?"

"I trust his integrity more," Mr. Todd barked, the words bitter in his mouth, "it's a private matter. Go!"

The last was almost a roar. The sudden increase in volume sent Toby hopping, he rand out of the store without even pausing to untuck the apron from his belt. Good, the barber thought viciously, still tasting bile from the abhorrent lie; the apron lent credence to the story, imposing just how urgent the message was.

"Mr. T!" Mrs. Lovett hissed, her hands suddenly clutching at his arm. "have you run mad?" she demanded, as loudly as she dared with customers still outside. "I've still got customers what want feeding! It wont be empty for hours yet, someone will see!" Mr. Todd ignored her, but she only clutched still more tightly he harder he tried to tug his arm from her grip. Somehow it didn't occur to him to turn his blades to her skin. "And shame," she hissed into his ear, "shame on you for giving up your own daughter."

That gave him pause. The barber's fire was extinguished in an icy clarity. Very calmly, very softly, he turned to speak to Mrs. Lovett. "Anthony is not bringing her here. I wont see her."

Mrs. Lovett's grip eased, allowing him to pull his arm free of her grip, perhaps more gently than he would have before. Mr. Todd seemed to hesitate a moment, then he was gone out the door again, replaced by a man in a grey suit who wished to take half a dozen pies. Mrs. Lovett served him with her mind on other things, nearly waving him away when her offered her the money. She wanted to follow Mr. Todd upstairs, to gentle him with words and a healthy dose of gin... the urge would remain unfulfilled. With a bustling shop and no Toby to help her, all Mrs. Lovett could do was attend to business and pray that everything would be alright.

* * *

Each second passed with excrutiating slowness, the time between the tick and tock of the matle clock unnaturally long. Mr. todd could barely breathe. It felt as if the air he forced through his lungs had turned to soup. Mrs. Lovett had closed her shop early to accomodate him, though it had been difficult for her to do so. The baker had simply claimed a problem with her oven and shooed all new customers away with the promise that it would be working again tomorrow. When her few remaining customers had left she had quickly dashed about, tidying up and closing shop as quickly as she could. Mr. Todd could barely hear her now over the sound of his own heart, an insistent drumming that drowned everything else out.

He almost missed the sound of approaching footsteps, hearing them only a moment before a small fist rapped on the door. "Come in," Mr. Todd barked, disappointed yet because he knew it was not the Judge at his door. Sure enough the door opened on Toby and not Turpin.

"He's coming," Toby informed the barber shortly, "he said he was coming, that was I was run ahead and tell you, he'll be here on the hour."

Mr. Todd swung around to look at the clock, noting the time as his heart began to pound again. "On the hour," he repeated in a murmur. "Boy!" Mr. Todd turned on his heel, regarding the youth with a cold expression. "Why don't you go downstairs and have a tot of gin with Mrs. Lovett."

Toby hesitated, then nodded. "Yes sir," he answered quietly. "And... good luck, sir."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes**: Still not dead. Though I did have to dig through several boxes of crap to find the original draft for this chapter... It seems longer than it should be, and yet I'm not sure if this really ends it... Your opinion?

-

A mix of desolation and prosperity sprawled out before him, dimly lit by the street lamps that lined the road. Posters peeled from the side of buildings that were long overdue for whitewashing. Judge Turpin strode through the streets with a purpose, swagger stick at his side. He had tried to contact Beadle Bamford before he left but the man was a no-show and the clock was ticking. For all he knew the boy had arrived already and the barber would be trying very hard to persuade the kidnapper to lay low at the shop rather than dash off into the night and anonymity. The boy would pay for his crimes to the full extent of the law... Or, far more satisfying, he would pay with his own flesh, the debt taken out of him with a sound thrashing. The Judge intended to break his cane upon the boy's back. And as for Johanna... If the girl had yet to learn her lesson, she would be put right back where she had come from.

The lights were off in the pie shop downstairs when Turpin arrived. The courtyard was empty. Only a slight lingering smell of pastry and meat hinted that the shop had been open at all tonight. The Lovett woman must have closed early. Very sensible, Judge Turpin agreed, no doubt the barber had told her and she had shut early to avoid a scandal.  
Mr. Todd met him when the Judge was only half way up the stairs. He looked anxious, his hair even wilder than usual. For such a skilled barber, the man didn't seem to take much pride in his own appearance.

"Judge Turpin," Mr. Todd greeted him with a murmur. "The boy is upstairs."

"Thank you, Mr. Todd," the Judge replied, passing the barber on the stair. He trotted up the last few steps and opened the door, shock running through him when he saw that the barber shop was empty.

A sharp click behind him was the lock on the door turning. Judge Turpin spun on his heel to face the barber, faltering at the wild light in the other man's eyes. "What -" the Judge began, a cold shiver rushing over his skin as the barber caressed the blade that was suddenly in his hand. "What is the meaning of this?"

"You don't remember me," Mr. Todd rumbled, his voice an eerie growl. He smiled, cold and harsh, and opened his razor to admire its shine. "But I intend to be the last thing you see. You'll remember me yet, Judge Turpin, before you die."

The man wasn't joking. All Turpin had to defend himself with was his cane. He looked about for a better weapon amongst the pots and brushes but Todd had already taken all of the razors. The man had planned this, that much was obvious. For once in his life without words, Judge Turpin bolted for the door. Sweeney Todd met him in the middle with an outstretched razor and a cold grin. Pain sliced into his wrist, blood spurting. Turpin felt his fingers go limp, dropping the cane that was his only defense - Todd had cut to the bone, severing muscle and tendons. A kick pushed him back to the centre of the room. Turpin stumbled, clutching his wrist, and fell into the strangely sinister chair where all of Todd's customers met those silver blades.

"Lucy Barker," Mr. Todd growled, stalking forwards with a blade in each hand, Turpin's blood already staining one of his sleeves. "Johanna Barker." That name was a roar. "Do you remember what you did to Johanna's mother?"

A cold, icy clarity trickled through Turpin's veins, dripping out of his wrist and through his fingers to drip onto the leather chair where he sat, trapped by a madman.

"Benjamin," Mr. Todd continued, his razor slowly raising to press against Turpin's throat. "Benjamin Barker. Do you remember what you did to him?"

"Dear God," Turpin choked, recognition flooding him. Beneath the scowl, the lines on his face and the wild grey-streaked hair the remnants of Benjamin Barker peered out at him through angry eyes.

"There is no God," Todd/barker hissed, slowly sliding the razor across Turpin's throat; "Not where you're going."

Blood blossomed against skin, a slow cascade washing down the Judge's neck and soaking his clothes. The barber pulled a lever and sudden the chair was tilting. The Judge kept staring at that suddenly recognisable face even as he fell through the shaft in the floor. He hit the basement at a strange angle, cracking his shoulder rather than his head. The bone fractured, muscles screaming in pain. Judge Turpin, still aware and alive, slowly rolled his head to the side to see where he had landed.

Mrs. Lovett was standing in front of a stained wooden table in the basement kitchen of her shop, cleaver in hand as she deftly sliced the last good meat from someone's bones. Toby had disappeared into the dark maze of the sewers with a sack of guts and fat; There was too much from the Beadle to just throw down into the shallow waters beneath the shop. It needed deeper water or it would never wash away.  
Mrs. Lovett was talking to herself, too used to the sound of bodies falling to even look over her shoulder. "...wonder how long it will be," she was saying. "Can't be long now, can it?"

Judge Turpin watched dumbly as the woman threw the bones into a pile by the big oven, then carried the scraps of meat to a huge metal grinder. He felt delirious. it didn't quite match up somehow, he couldn't imagine why he would have wound up here.  
Mrs. Lovett bustled past, her skirts brushing his good hand. Despite his broken shoulder, Turpin latched on. Blood dripped from his neck and onto the floor as he pulled himself up a little to look at her. He tried to form words, to demand her help, but all that came out was a disgusting gurgle and a spray of blood.

Mrs. Lovett screamed. She wrenched her skirts from his grip, kicking him in the face with the toe of her boot. The Judge fell to the floor again, the edges of his vision beginning to lose focus. His hands were starting to feel numb, he could barely feel his lower half. Somewhere in the distance he could hear Mrs. Lovett still screaming.

A door burst open somewhere and Turpin watched Todd - no, Barker - enter, still covered in his blood. The man went straight to Lovett, taking hold of her arms and talking at her until she could breathe enough to say something. The baker pointed in his direction. Turpin's vision greyed. He blinked. When he next opened his eyes it was to Todd's feet right in front of him. Turpin gurgled, a rattling whisper struggling to pass his lips.

"Barker..." he said.

Then something crashed against his skull. That moment, and every moment since, Judge Turpin felt nothing.

-

Mrs. Lovett pressed a hand firmly against her chest, willing her heart to stop beating so fast. Mr. Todd stood by the corpse of Judge Turpin, looking like a man who had felt God for the first time, face tipped up towards the ceiling, a serene look upon his face.  
Mrs. Lovett forced herself to move. She wiped her hands on her skirt before gripping the iron handle on the oven door. The hinges creaked a little, the door opening with a wave of heat that swept across the basement. Mrs. Lovett turned and stepped to the side, standing by the bones and the open door with one hand still on the iron, posed like she was on stage.

"Mr. Todd," she spoke softly.

The barber stiffened, turned, and regarded her with a strange look. Mrs. Lovett gestured to the open door, eyebrows raising. Mr. Todd smiled at her, his eyes glinting in understanding. Better get rid of this one quick, just in case. Just to make it final. The barber hauled the Judge up,dragging him across the room with hands under the corpse's armpits. He threw the corpse into the open oven, watching the man's hair and clothes begin to char even as Mrs. Lovett pushed the door shut. For a moment, the baker and the barber simply stared at each other, neither one with anything to say. Then Mr. Todd laughed.

He swept her up, one hand on her waist, the other grabbing her wrist, and spun her into a sudden dance. Mrs. Lovett grasped his hand in hers and laughed with him, thrilled to see him smiling at her - at her and not just some new idea. They had just completed one circuit of the room when a voice piped up from the grate in the floor.

"So is it over then?" Toby asked, rather bemused to return from his errand to see Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett spinning around the room in a dance without music. "It went well and everything?"

The pair spun to a halt, faces flushed. Mrs. Lovett patted her hair, then her dress, and finally cleared her throat. "I think we all deserve a celebration," she said, smiling at Toby. "How about we all go upstairs for some tea?"

Toby shrugged, sliding the grate back to its proper place. Tea sounded fine to him. Especially if it would keep those two from dancing again. It was one thing to know that both Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett were a little bit mad, another thing entirely to actually see them cantering about the room like loonies.

-

The atmosphere upstairs was different than usual. Mrs. Lovett led them both to the parlour before skipping away to put a kettle on. She returned wearing a clean apron over her blood-stained skirts and carrying a small towel for Mr. Todd's hands. "Here you are, dear," she said, "best clean up those hands of yours."

Mr. Todd took the cloth without a thought and began carefully wiping the Judge's blood from his hands. He took out his razors a moment later and began to clean them too, meticulously wiping the smears of drying blood from their shining surface. When they were clean, Mrs. Lovett took the cloth from him and tucked it into one of her pockets, offering him a fond smile. "Now this is all over," she said, looking between him and the boy, "we can forget the Judge ever existed. We could even be like a family. Move to the sea," Mrs. Lovett continued, looking wistful, "open up a lovely new shop. Or a hotel. I wouldn't mind owning a hotel..."

Mr. Todd frowned, looking at her reflection in the blade of his favourite razor. She was a dark smudge of a dress, with a splash of cream and a tumble of dark red around her face. He snapped the blade shut and looked away. He didn't want to listen to her talking like this all of a sudden. Her talk of forgetting, of a new family... Before he had even realised it, Mr. Todd was on his feet, backing Mrs. Lovett against the wall.

"You can't replace her." Todd's words reverberated throughout the parlour, his eyes glowing with a hellish light, lit from within like the oven fire that even now consumed the physical traces of his insanity. He held his now-open razor to her throat and yanked her head back by her hear, excited and yet disgusted to see the frightened look in her eyes and the shine of silver against her creamy skin. "You will never replace her." A low hiss this time, his face uncomfortably close to hers.

Mrs. Lovett was beside herself. She had feared him sometimes, her Mr. Todd, a little fear for a man like him was healthy. But she had not expected this, not now, not when the mood had been so light only seconds before. Her dark chocolate eyes were so wide that white showed all around the iris. Her mouth and throat worked to produce a sound - any sound.

"Mr. T," she gasped finally, the scrape of his razor against her throat making her voice breathy, "I would never think to replace your Lucy! We could have a life together -" a sudden sting, the razor edge pressing harder warned to her a correction "-If! If we had a life together, I couldn't replace her even then. She's in too deep there, close to your heart, she can never go away." Mrs. Lovett took a breath, feeling a trickle of blood cool against her skin. If nothing she could say would placate this fire in him she was dead, and Toby too most likely. Poor Toby, who stood by the table, frozen in horror - unable to make a move unless Mr. Todd pushed the razor through her flesh before she could be freed.

If Nellie Lovett was going to die, she had no reason not to say what was on her mind. "But would she still love you now? Can you see her, the idea of her what you hold so dear, being able to love you, Sweeney Todd?"

Mr. Todd flinched as if she had slapped him. His gaze dropped from hers, only to find himself following the small, wet, red trail of blood on her skin. The trail flowed down her neck, over her collar bone, and down towards the tops of her breasts where they curved enticingly from her bodice. His eyes snapped back to hers in defiance. Mr. Todd didn't want to notice that she was a woman, or to remember that night that he had walked in on her when she was undressing. He didn't want to imagine that somehow he might view her with any kind of attraction or admiration. He hated her, loathed her, saw her as a means to and end. He had no friends, he wanted to lovers. He had no purpose, and he wanted only... "Lucy."

"Can you remember her, Mr. Todd?" Mrs. Lovett pressed, her face strangely sympathetic for a woman about to die. Mr. Todd looked away, finding his gaze now upon the boy - an annoyance. A thorn in his side and small, trifling nuisance that made Mrs. Lovett smile. "Can you remember more than the idea of her? Would your Lucy still love a murder?" There was a long pause. The words sank through him, creating ripples somewhere inside his chest in a place where it hurt to look. "Mr. Todd... Mr. Todd, look at me."

A gentle, heavy hand as white as flour touched his without trying to push the blade form her skin. Mr. Todd turned his face back to hers, compelled by the sound of her voice, the tiny mote of reason that could penetrate his fits and strange turns of catatonia.

"Mr. Todd," Mrs. Lovett said firmly, fear, sympathy and defiance in her eyes. "I love you, you silly man."

Words penetrated the fog and the light drained from his eyes. Shoulders drooped, both arms falling limp by his sides. A light went on inside Mr. Todd's head, illuminating the uncomfortable truth that he'd sought to hide from himself. Murderer. Madman. Heartless fiend who killed without pity or remorse, delighting in the idea of death. What good was left to him? He had no warmth. A smile, a simple thing, felt alien and uncomfortable on his face. He couldn't even blame revenge anymore. The Judge was dead, but he could still feel no remorse. Mr. Todd could kill a hundred men and never so much as bat an eyelid.

Lucy Barker was dead and so was Benjamin. In his place stood a man made of stone, cold marble riddles with cracks and faults, horns hidden only by wild, untamed hair.

With nothing left, Sweeney Todd found that he couldn't even cry. "Nell..."

Mr. Todd slumped forward, his forehead brushing hers. He felt her hands as they steadied him, deceptively thin, strong arms steering him in some unknown direction. Mr. Todd couldn't recall sitting down, but when he next glanced up he was in a chair, his razor lying innocently on the top of the table before him. hr picked it up, looked at it a moment, then put it where it belonged, in its holster by his side.

It was like waking up, how he suddenly heard voices coming from the shop front and its kitchen.

"...I thought he was going to kill you!"

"Nonsense, Toby. Don't talk silly. Mr. T didn't even nick me skin, not really."

"Don't nonsense me, ma'am!" Toby replied, still sounding upset. "I saw how you was looking!"

"That's enough, Toby," Mrs. Lovett replied firmly. "Now pick up those heels. I'll be in with the tea."

Mr. Todd heard the clink of teacups and the sound of water being poured. The distinctive click of Mrs. Lovett's heels followed, alongside the softer footsteps of the boy. Mr. Todd looked up to see Mrs. Lovett coming in with a tea tray, a teapot and three cups balanced on the slightly tarnished silver. Toby followed with a plate of small sandwiches and a smaller plate of sweet biscuits.

Mrs. Lovett placed her tray down on the card table, a flush bringing colour to her cheeks. "I thought we might still have a spot of tea," she explained, "since it's past dinnertime and none of us have eaten."

Mr. Todd stared at her, his face as blank as a new piece of slate. He stared as she sat down and poured out tea into their cups, and continued staring as Toby took a seat beside her and popped a biscuit into his mouth whole. "Thank you," Mr. Todd said finally, as stiff as if he had never said the words before in his life.

"You're welcome," Mrs. Lovett replied pleasantly, offering him the plate of sandwiches.

Mr. Todd selected one, shocked by how surreal this entire scene felt to him. He took a bite without tasting what he was eating and gave his tea much the same treatment. "Mrs. Lovett," he said, pausing for a moment when he realised the both she and Toby had been waiting for him to speak. "I confess, I hadn't given much thought to what I ought to do now..."  
He tapered off into silence, eyes moving back and forth between Mrs. Lovett and the boy. It struck him as strange that the boy was sitting across from him as if nothing unusual had happened. "Aren't you afraid of me?" Mr. Todd found himself asking, rather skeptically.

Toby shook his head, swallowing a good mouthful of food before speaking; "No sir. I know what you done and that you're a dangerous man, but I'm not scared of you. Not exactly. Anyway," the boy said, reaching for another biscuit, "I'm supposed to stay here and take care of Mrs. Lovett and if you kill her I'll kill you. So it's all fair I guess, isn't it?"

Mr. Todd looked at Mrs. Lovett, who was shaking her head at the boy. "Mrs. Lovett..."

Nellie Lovett smiled at him, pressing another sandwich into his hand. "We have a nice set up here," she told him, giving her opinion, "with a little bit of work this place could be real pretty. We've got a good business, money coming in regular like, if we fix up your attic room a bit we'd be looking right respectable. Pies is very saleable and this is a good location. I say we stay right here, luv. At least for now."

Mr. Todd looked down at the sandwich in his hand, unable to recall when the first had disappeared. Suddenly he felt ravenous, consumed by physical hunger that he hadn't felt in years, not since the burning hunger for revenge had crept into his mind. Such a human need made him feel slightly better about his lack of remorse. Mr. Todd couldn't say why, but it began to finally occur to him that this was who he was now. Perhaps he was cold, a killer who had lost his sanity long ago, but he was human still. Mr. Todd's lips twisted, twitching into a strange, unfamiliar smile. "Very well," he said, looking across at Mrs. Lovett, "on the condition that you sell the Beadle at half price. Nobody is going to pay much for anything so foul."

"The Beadle?" Toby said, surprising Mr. Todd with how casual he sounded. "That's all fat, that is."

"We'll put it on special," Mrs. Lovett decided, "and pretend its for some special occasion."

-

A bell sounded from the shop front, drawing the conversation to an abrupt end. "Mr. Todd?" a familiar voice called. "Mrs. Lovett? There was no-one at the shop upstairs, so I..." Anthony appeared in the doorway, stopping short at the strange domestic scene laid out in front of him. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

Mrs. Lovett smiled, getting to her feet. "Nonsense. We were only having a spot of tea. I'll wager everyone here finds this a sight more important."

"Johanna?" Mr. Todd asked suddenly, his throat so tight that his voice came out a strange croak. Hands clenched tight without regard for tea-time refreshments, hunger immediately forgotten.

"She's in the carriage outside," Anthony replied, giving Mr. Todd a rather odd look. "I came in to tell you that we were leaving, and to thank you for all that you've done. Mr. Todd...?"

All eyes were on the barber. Mr. Todd looked as if he had slipped into another bout of catatonia. He blinked at Anthony. "I knew her father," Mr. Todd said gruffly. "Benjamin Barker. He was a barber."

Things connected for Anthony. He looked at his friend in surprise, watching Mrs. Lovett lean over to pat the barber's hand. "That story that you told me," Anthony realised, "when we first landed in London. That was about him, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was." Mr. Todd frowned, looking reflective for a moment. He nodded at Anthony. "He would have liked you," the barber said finally.


End file.
